An Alternative Path
by BattlemageABK
Summary: Lord Voldemort marked Olive Potter on that fateful Halloween night. But what happened to her elder brother, Harry Potter? With his penchant of getting into and out of trouble, dangers lurking in the shadows, and a future that is changing with every breath he takes, the wizarding world will not know what hit them! NonBWL-Powerful Harry! Alive Potters!
1. Chapter 1

A/N: So this is my second try at a fanfiction here. The first one was obviously a dud, but, at that time I was just so excited to write my own stuff that I made a terrible start. After all this time, I have read a lot of fanfictions, matured, improved my writing style, and now have a basic understanding of what I want to write.

Anyways, enough of my monologue, but this fic is inspired by a lot of fics, including 'Child of the Storm' (mostly in scale, because of how ambitious the plans are, that I have for it, mind you, this is NOT a crossover, just that my plans are on that scale, bigger than most if not all HP fanfics), many 'Wrong-Boy/Girl-Who-Lived' stories (especially 'Family Bonds', one of the best WBWL and Severus-raises-Harry fics I have ever read, a pity that it will forever be unfinished), 'Oblivion' (another good story that got discontinued, I fairly liked the Elder Scroll Crossover thing and the relationship between Harry and family, even though won't be replicating the exact thing here) and some ideas from a few others. Please do forgive any minor spelling mistakes, as it is, I would be getting a BETA reader only if the story really takes off.

On with the story, I guess. 

Once Upon a Time

A tall figure, almost a silhouette, walked down the lane of a quaint little village in West Country of England, his midnight black cloak billowing and fluttering in the cold breeze wafting through. Any other night, he would have stood out like a sore thumb, an anomaly, but tonight, his attire blended in completely with others, as men, women and children roamed around, dressed as monsters and aliens and vampires, celebrating the night of Halloween, shrieking and giggling as they ran back and forth, from House to House, asking for candies and sweets and what not, while their mothers and fathers watched on from the sidelines, some watching with wry amusement and humour in their eyes, while others, having forced into similar costumes as their children, watched the ongoing festivities with happiness and joy, barely paying a sidelong glance to the robed figure, probably another parent, walking with purpose, an unmistakable serpentine grace in his movements.

Of course, this figure was not just a random passerby, or even a resident of the village, for he did not really belong here, the absence of a companion alongside him, as was the case for most other adults, making it clear that an outsider had entered the Godric's Hollow.

His stride was purposeful, and not once did he change direction, for people moved out of his way themselves, as if by magic, as he glided through the streets to reach an intersection where a nice little cottage stood, unseen by many, unknown by most, hidden by magic, and not the riff-raff kind of flashy magic that street magicians indulged in, but one of the most ancient of magics, powerful enough to hide away a secret from the world, an object, a person, maybe even a house (as was the case here), and seal the key to the secret inside the soul of a person, the Secret-Keeper. The owners of this house, the Potters, had entrusted this secret to whom they believed to be one of their best friends, a part of their family, Peter Pettigrew, a best friend, who had turned traitor for the promises of more power, and due to his own cowardice, and disclosed the secret to his master and Lord, Tom Marvolo Riddle, or as he was better known as in magical Britain: Dark Lord Voldemort.

As the Dark Lord unlatched the garden gate and ascended the stairs, the familiar feeling of wards washed over him. He had been prepared for the level of warding that could be found in family manors and was actually somewhat disappointed at the quality of protection, supposedly to keep him out.

'Child's play,' he thought disdainfully as he disabled the minor alert and intent wards surrounding the property with a few flicks of his 13 and a half inches Yew wand.

'Pathetic! Did they think that they could stop the Dark Lord Voldemort with a few school-grade wards, the father put up a far better fight than the son, it seems,' he thought as he remembered the duel that had taken place in the ministry, where Charlus Potter had taken down two of his inner circle Death Eaters and even mildly impressed him with his ferocity and repertoire of spells, that is, before he had put down the Potter family head with a Killing Curse. He could say that he even had a grudging respect for the man, and would have taken him in his inner circle if there had been an opportunity, but he knew a Potter would never side with a Dark Lord, as history had told, and in the end, he had to stay content with killing the Potter Patriarch, thereby reducing the power of his opposition. Though James Potter had been a thorn in his side a few times, disrupting his attacks on Diagon Alley and Hogsmeade and even holding him off once, with the help of his infernal mudblood wife.

'It seems, I will not be facing the 'thrice defying' parents today after all' he mused as he unlocked the front door with a finality.

"Yous not be allowed in Masters' House," a house elf with the Potter crest emblazoned on a piece of cloth wrapped around her(presumably female, from the voice) body, stood at the entrance, hands glowing with magic, ready to blast anyone coming through the door.

"A house elf! That is the Potters' ultimate defence against me! HaHaHahahahaaa," and Lord Voldemort laughed. It was not a good laugh, but one that seemed wrong on many levels, and sent chills down the spine of the house elf, along with the residents currently upstairs. Even before Tipsy , the house elf could send a banisher equivalent of for a house elf at the Dark Lord, his wand flashed, quick as lightning and a green light burst out of it, colliding with Tipsy who flopped down to the ground, like a puppet whose strings had been cut, dead to the world.

But Lord Voldemort continued to laugh, for this had been too easy, he had expected resistance, in the form of the war wards of Potter manor, or maybe even one or two aurors, to prevent him from ending the child of the Prophecy. Eventually, he banished the corpse of the stupid elf and glided up the stairs, just in time to see a door slam shut at the far end of the room.

'Interesting, it seems that I spoke too soon! Maybe the Potters are not as pathetic as I assumed, maybe this WILL be interesting,' he smirked as he reached the last room, blasted the door open, a shield already up to face whoever was in there, only to stop short upon seeing a small child, barely 3-4 years old, glaring at him, or at least as much as a 4 year could glare, while holding what appeared to be a toy wand in his hand, pointed at him with trembling hands and tear-stained eyes, standing in front of a crib, in which, presumably, the prophecy child, Olive Potter was sleeping.

"Y-You-You h-hurt Tipsy, y-you are a bad man," the boy hiccupped and stuttered while still keeping the silly toy pointed at the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord, on the other hand, was looking at the boy, as if he were a puzzle to be solved, for he had not expected a second child to be present here, not one who looked like a Potter, at any rate. That's when he remembered, a conversation he had with his Pet Potioneer Severus, hearing about the birth of the Potter heir, one who had only been seen out in the public once or twice, and remained a mystery to the general wizarding public. Harry James Potter, born on 30th September, 4 years ago, that was pretty much all the information available, and he had decided not to dig deeper, for the child was not born in July, and thus, was not part of the prophecy.

Any other time, he would have been amused, and maybe even somewhat impressed, for the boy, while shaking, was still pointing his toy wand at him, and the power steadily emanating from the boy was nothing to scoff at either, for he had rarely if ever seen a four year old emit power at the levels of Hogwarts students, and he would have loved to recruit such a child into his own plans of world domination, but alas, he had work to do, and this little obstacle, could not deter him from his path.

"Move away child, I have business not with you, but with your sister," he intoned in a voice that was more of a hiss, and resonated with the fight or flight instincts of the boy, urging him to run away, away from this monstrosity in a human's shell, to run back into his mother's arms, but the child did not budge. He shook, a moment away from crying, trembled like a leaf, but the child stood there.

Lord Voldemort raised his eyebrows, hidden under the hood, for never before had someone stood up to him for this long, barring his old Transfiguration teacher, and with Dumbledore being one of, if not the most powerful wizards in Britain, if not the whole world, the boys' actions had interesting implications. This moment of contemplation over with, he swept aside his hand, in a grand gesture, as if clearing the path, and little Harry slid away from in front of the crib, to the corner of the room, the trembling and shaking increasing, if it was possible, and the light of the toy finally dimming.

As the Dark Lord reached the crib to have a look inside, he found that the girl had woken up among all this commotion, and hazel eyes were staring at him with curiosity as if searching for something, and when the eyes did not find it, the little one-year old, Olive Lily Potter, started wailing, with sounds like 'Hawwy, mama, dadda' coming from her mouth.

Annoyed, Voldemort cast a silencing charm on the girl, making the room eerily quiet, and unnoticed by the man, little Harry looked up from where he had fallen, an intense look in his eyes.

"So, tonight ends the prophecy, along with the prophecy child, for I am Lord Voldemort, the True Heir of the Slytherin house ,and just the idea of a mere child becoming my equal is utterly impossible," and with that, Lord Voldemort pointed his wand at Olive, and uttered the words that would change the course of history.

"Avada Kedavra," he hissed at the same time Harry shouted "Noooooo!" from across the room, and his wild magic rushed forward to do the little magicals' bidding, clashing with the force that was going to harm his little sister.

The wild magic was powerful, but in the end, the Killing Curse was the vilest of soul magics, and a little boy's magic, as powerful as it may be, would have ultimately lost the battle, if not for another intervening force. The room became encased in the brightest of Lights, as the runes surrounding the outer boundary of Olive's crib lit up, the final protection drawn on by one Lily Potter, after more than an year dedicated to the research for protections magic, and her foray into the Potter and Black Libraries to obtain this knowledge. Though, this in itself would not have been enough, because the runes required magic, an amount that was so vast, that it could only be generated from one's life force, in the form of sacrificial magic. But Harrys' wild magic in this case compensated, and proved enough, if barely, to charge the protection runes to their full power and reflect the Green Light of the Killing Curse back towards its caster. Voldemort felt a jolt of fear, for the first time in a very long time, and as the Killing Curse touched him, he could only hope that the steps he had taken to prevent his demise would be enough and that he would get his chance to get revenge on this little child who had defeated him for once.

The soul of the Dark Lord detached from his body, but his soul fragments distributed across the continent prevented its departure into the afterlife, and thus with a horrible screech of rage, horror and fury, the spirit blew a hole through the cottage roof and flew away. His robes remained, surrounding the pile of dust that had been his body, along with his wand, having dropped from his hand.

The raw power exuded from Harry Potter was not limited to Godric's Hollow either, but spread out throughout the continent, registering on devices as a surge of magic of unfathomable limits, before receding back into the boy, who passed out from using all of his magical force at once to do the impossible. All of the vast amounts of residual magic proved too much for Olive as well, and she too lost consciousness, as a lightning bolt mark appeared on her head, as a result of being in the centre of the runic circle, the symbol for the Sól rune, marking the beginning of joy, triumph and new things in her life.

At the same time, James and Lily Potter, who were effectively twiddling thumbs and feeling anxiety in their guts for an unknown reason, sat in a meeting of the Order of the Phoenix, as discussions were held on which place needed more protecting this week, and people lamented over which family had been attacked and wiped out this week. They had thought about skipping this meeting and celebrating Halloween with their children, but Dumbledore had insisted that the whole order be there, for they had something important to discuss, and so there they were.

In a different timeline, the Lord and Lady of House Potter, would have had a single child, Harry James, and at this point of time, they would have been at their Fidelius-protected house, enjoying the festive atmosphere with their one-year old, and completely unprepared for the betrayal at the hands of Pettigrew and the impending Dark Lord barging through their front door. This would have led to their deaths and then fate would have guided their son towards his destiny. But, here and now, James and Lily Potter had left their children, 4-year old Harry James Potter, and 1-year old Olive Lily Potter under the watchful eye of their beloved family elf, Tipsy, safe in the knowledge that their children would be out of danger under the Fidelius charm.

So when they received an alert that dangerous amounts of Magic had been performed in their house, James Potter went white as a sheet, while Lily Potter gasped, before Lily rushed to the nearest apparition point, James on her heels, and Sirius, upon their expressions of dawning horror, turned to Padfoot and matched them step for step. Dumbledore, after regaining his bearings at the sudden action taking place in front of his eyes, urgently followed after the trio, with speed belying his age, in order to confirm what he already suspected to have happened, or start making alternate plans, if by some chance, he was proven wrong. After a minute or so of the four peoples' departure, everybody else scrambled to their feet, trying to think of what had to have happened, and what would be happening now. Frank Longbottom along with Alice, decided to check on their son as well, feeling equal parts relief and guilt at their Neville not being the target of the Prophecy, but that another family's, their good friends' child had to be.

Lily, James and Sirius arrived at the cottage one after the other, wands drawn, eyes filled with equal parts terror and determination, and surveyed the scene around the dining room and entrance, nothing much looked out of place at first glance, other than the gate being unlocked, but then their eyes fell towards the corner of the room, where Tipsy, their house elf lay still, unnaturally so. With just a look, they knew she was dead, and so the three rushed up stairs, just as the headmaster entered the house himself. The broken apart the door, made their feet run even faster, and the chaos that was the nursery, with the roof caved in, and a black robe on the floor, with what looked like black sand under it, made Lily think the first as she slowly made her way to the crib. The others entered the room, Dumbledore having covered the ground by now, and all three stared at where Harry was lying on the ground on the opposite side of the crib from where the black robes were, seemingly dead to the world.

By now, Lily had reached the crib, and was staring in astonishment at the Lightning Bolt shaped rune marked on her daughter's forehead. She had drawn the runes by herself, so she knew their purpose, but the fact that the runes had activated without any sacrifice puzzled her. She even thought that maybe Tipsy's death had powered the runes, but she had died quiet some distance away, and contact or near contact had to be established for the ritual to draw power. She picked up her baby, cradling her in her arms, checking for injuries, but there were none, save for the Sól rune etched on her forehead, a dark red colour underneath, most likely from the blood loss and the reaction of the runic ritual.

She moved over to where Dumbledore was examining the robes and wand of whoever had been the intruder, though she could make a reasonable guess as to the identity of the intruder. She could see Sirius picking Harry up, who seemed asleep, and judging from the look on Sirius's face, alright. James made his way to her, an expression of worry etched on his face, dragging a finger across Olive's face, he asked her, "Is she alright?" a slight tinge of worry in his eyes that melted away when Olive leaned into his hand, gurgling nonsense that sounded like music to her parents' ears.

"How is Harry?" Lily asked James, looking towards the hallway, where Sirius had gone to take Harry to his own room.

"Harry is alright, not any injury that we could see, but we should take him to St. Mungos later on, along with Olive here," James replied in a voice that was unusually calm and stoic for a person such as him.

They both moved to where Albus was standing, a wand and cloak in hand, seemingly in deep thought, but as soon as they reached him, he snapped out of whatever he was thinking about, looking towards them with an expression that suggested, that he knew already what they wanted to talk about.

"What happened here Albus? Is Olive okay? Was Voldemort here? Is the prophecy fulfilled? Is he gone now?" James fired a rapid stream of questions to the Headmaster of Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, wanting to know what happened to his children in his home, from the only person who seemed to know something.

Albus adjusted his half-moon spectacles, with his eyes starting to regain their twinkle, as he replied, "What happened here is that Tom decided that he needed to kill your daughter in order to destroy who he thought would be his vanquisher. I never did think that Tom would believe in Divination this much, especially after he himself did not seem to have the inner eye for it. Hmm, maybe that's why, he was afraid, maybe, that this unknown magic, that he had no idea about, would end up bringing his ruin….Perhaps…" the last part was said in a lower tone of voice, as Albus Dumbledore had started to contemplate the circumstances that would have led to Tom choosing the Potter child, and on the Hallows Eve at that.

"Albus! What about Olive, you said Voldemort would come after the Prophecy child, so the prophecy is now done and dusted, right? He is gone, isn't he?" James asked in slight hysterics at having no idea what happened to his family and what would be happening in the future. Sirius was standing side-by-side to James, wand out to his side, glowing faintly, as if to release his magic on any threats still hidden near them.

Lily herself had gone back to looking at her daughter's face, or more specifically the rune etched on her forehead, the Lightning Bolt glowing a Dark Red, as if mocking her for her inability to figure out the circumstances behind its appearance.

"James, my boy, I do not think we have to worry about young Olive at all, although fulfilment of the Prophecy is a whole different thing, for I believe that he is not gone for good," he replied, the twinkle in his eyes dimming somewhat at this admission.

"But the good news is that he is gone for now, and young Olive Potter here, is responsible for sending him to his temporary demise," he continued, the twinkle coming back, albeit to a lower level than previously, as Lily came near him, having given up on trying to figure out the rune, and coming to ask the person who would know about this more than her.

"But HOW Albus? How did the protection ritual take place? No sacrificial magic happened here, and no one was here with power enough to activate the runes? HOW?!" Lily asked, practically shouting by the last part, only stopping when it looked like she would wake her daughter up.

"Aaah, I believe that is the power my dear, that was mentioned in the prophecy, 'but they or in this case she will have the Power the Dark Lord knows not'," he recited from memory, the already going through the words of the Prophecy again and again in an effort to glean anything more out of the Prophetic words.

"And this Lightning Bolt, the Sól rune, marks her as the Dark Lord's equal," said Dumbledore as he traced the Lightning bolt with his finger, looking for something far away, and moving his hand and gaze away from the youngest Potter, when he did not find it.

"I believe, what happened here, is that Tom came through the entrance, having bypassed the secret with the help of the secret keeper," "PETER!" Albus was interrupted here by the growling sound coming from Sirius' mouth, similar to the sound he would make in his animagus form, and the look of outrage on James face, though all of it was dwarfed by the aura that started to almost physically emanate from Lily Potter, her head down, not looking at her daughter but seeing something far away, the aura not affecting the daughter sleeping in her lap, but even making Dumbledore take a moment to concentrate his Occlumency barriers in order to compose himself, while James and Sirius looked on in concern as Olive's Toy Rat Plushy burst into fire from the top shelf on where it was resting.

"Ahhem, as I was saying, Peter disclosed the secret to Voldemort, who came in through the front door, killed your house elf," there was barely any reaction this time, just a bare tightening of James' fists at the thought of the death of the elf who helped raising him, and had been in his family for generations.

"And then proceeded up the stairs, where someone, presumably young Harry, closed the door to the nursery in an effort to stop Voldemort, who just blasted through and banished Harry to the corner of the room, and maybe he hit his head on a wall and lost consciousness. Then I believe Tom cast the Killing Curse on Olive Potter whose power activated and sent the Killing Curse back to Voldemort, thereby stripping his soul from his body, the soul that ran away for some time, but whom I suspect, will come back to finish the job he started, and as far as he is concerned, kill the Prophecy child to become truly immortal," Albus ended his explanation of things with a hint of graveness and tiredness at the prospect of another fight in the future against Lord Voldemort.

"I also suspect that the burst of young Olives' power is what has led to her magical exhaustion, but we will need to get them to Pomfrey, for a check-up to make sure that nothing is amiss," he added as he walked out of the nursery, the other three following behind, Lily having never put Olive down for even a second, fearing whatever may happen.

After it took all three a few minutes to process all of what had been said, they had reached the bottom of the stairs, where Albus turned around and told them that, "We will need to prepare young Olive for when Voldemort regains his body and decides to come after her. We also need to learn about the power that the Dark Lord knows not, for I believe that it is the only way that we will be able to defeat Tom, once and for all," he ended, none of them aware that the mysterious power that they were talking about, was sleeping soundly in his room upstairs, unaware of the course that history had taken, unaware of his future, unaware of the trials, the obstacles, and the grave dangers that he would be facing in the future, or of how his happy little carefree life of a 4-year old would be changing in the future.

The day after Halloween went by in a rush for just about everyone. Everybody had found out about the ruse of Sirius Black being the Potter Secret Keeper and the betrayal of Peter Pettigrew at the hands of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the story of the night had gotten out, somehow and been bent and twisted to unfathomable proportions. Some theories suggested that little Olive Potter was the reincarnation of Morgana le Fay, the most infamous and powerful witch in the history of magic, others suggested that Olive Potter was a prodigy greater than anyone else, and had sent back the Unforgivable to kill Voldemort, some were even insane enough to think that the 1-year old had time travelled into her young body to kill the Dark Lord. Among these stories, one had even suggested that Dumbledore was hiding the truth, and it was actually Harry Potter, the older Potter child, who had somehow defeated You-Know-Who, but this was quickly discarded as well. In the end, the Potters, along with Albus Dumbledore, had to give their statements to the journalists of leading newspapers from all across the globe, saying something along the lines of Olive Potter defeating the Dark Lord through a mysterious power that was actually a Potter family secret (to stop the prying journalists from prying further into the matter), and so the legend of The-Girl-Who-Lived was given birth that day.

Another legend was born that day, unknown to anyone, as a boy continued to sleep in the hospital bed of St. Mungos, every test on him having come out as normal, and since he had exhibited not a single symptom of magical exhaustion, he had been cleared for release. All this would been perfectly normal, if not for the fact that the boy's magical core was unusually large for his age, and the barely detectable magic in the 4-year old, which would have been the norm for a child of this age, if somewhat on the lower side of things, was the amount that the depleted core had restored in the time between the wild magic's explosion and the subsequent arrival of the group of four adults and two children two St. Mungos.

On the other hand, young Olive's magical core's depletion had confirmed Dumbledore's theories for everyone present, and the head healer's check-up had even revealed that the core was filling at an unusually fast rate. Albus Dumbledore explained this away as Olive being the Dark Lord's equal, so she would have a core that would be equal in strength to what Tom would have had when he was 1 year old, and considering his exploits, it too would have been larger than the average.

After the check-up and the subsequent release of the two children, the Potters had relocated to the Potter manor, and had a reunion with Remus Lupin, who had been called back from his mission of recruiting werewolves for the cause of Light, since the demise of the Dark Lord had made the task independent. The werewolf had been shocked, both at the attack, and the fact that Peter had been the traitor, even hurt and angry because of the fact that his best friends had thought him a traitor and so, did not tell him about the switch. The reunion had been bittersweet, but they were Remus' pack, and this thing would not have taken him away from them, so he remained.

Another unusual thing that happened was the change in Harry's behaviour, when earlier, he was a curious child, with a thirst for knowledge so big, that the Marauders sometimes even joked that he might get placed in Ravenclaw instead of Gryffindor, the days after Halloween, he became unusually quiet. When before he could be seen spending much time in the library, nowadays, most of the time, he could be found in his room, or in the manor grounds, sometimes even in the surrounding forest, always deep in thought, as if carrying the entire weight of the world on his little shoulders.

When asked about it, everybody, ranging from Lily to James to Sirius to Remus, everyone had got the same answer of "I am fine." and a smile that had started from being visibly forced to becoming deceptively real. If they had asked the headmaster to look into the matter, it would have become clear as to what was going on in Harry's mind, for Albus Dumbledore was an accomplished practitioner of Legillimency, the art of magically navigating through the layers of a person's mind, and interpreting the findings in a correct manner, or in Layman's terms, the art of mind reading. And he was not above probing a defenceless 4-year olds' mind in order to accomplish his goals, for his Greater Good. It would have also become clear to Dumbledore (and everyone he chose to tell) that Harry Potter was not just swatted away that night by the Dark Lord, but instead he had been the main source of power for the powering of the ritual, a seemingly impossible task, that would have made Dumbledore aware of the scale of Harry magical potential, and he would have taken matters into his own hands to prevent the rise of another Dark Lord during his time, by sending Harry to live with Lily's muggle sister, thereby hindering his magical growth and making it so that Harry would forever consider the wizarding world as his safe heaven, but alas, Dumbledore was busy at the moment, travelling around the world, sending letters and messages, asking for information and searching for instances, where a Killing Curse had been reflected back to its caster, a seemingly impossible feat, but if found, whose occurrence would shed some light upon the mysterious power of one Olive Potter.

So, the thoughts of one Harry Potter stayed true to himself, as he applied what little he knew, into what he saw on the Halloween night, to make sense of things for himself. Obviously, his family would have intervened more about his attitude, but whatever free time they had, was spent fussing over Olive, and as they believed that spending time with kids his age would help Harry in opening up a bit more, and since he was more intelligent than other 4-year olds, getting him admission in kindergarten made sense and thus a system was established. One where Harry would take the Floo network to reach The Leaky Cauldron, accompanied by an adult, who would drop him off at school, and at the end of the school day, someone would pick him up the same way.

James would have argued that Harry needed to be home-schooled like most wizarding children were, but, with the end of war, daily-life had resumed and James and Sirius barely had time away from home to dote on their daughter and god-daughter respectively. Remus was again off to look for work in the muggle world, and Lily had to take care of young Olive so she could not exactly spare time to teach young Harry. Dumbledore had also agreed with the decision.

Another event of note took place a few days after the Halloween night, when the Longbottom manor was attacked by the Inner Circle Death Eaters of Lord Voldemort : Bellatrix Lestrange, her husband Rodolphus Lestrange, his brother Rabastan, and the then head of DMLE's son, Barty Crouch Junior, all four of them overpowering the Longbottom wards with their rage fuelled attack, demanding to know about their Lords' location from a family who nothing about it, but they had been given orders earlier, to scout the Longbottom manor, because it was of import, and they could only reach the conclusion that the Longbottoms had some knowledge about their Lords' disappearance, and why their Dark marks had dimmed.

A brutal fight had ensued, and the two Longbottoms: Frank and Alice would surely have lost to the numbers game, for none of the four death eaters were of the weaker sort, but Frank had remained cautious, and despite Dumbledores' assurances that Voldemort was gone for now, he had refused to remove the alerting ward that would signal the DMLE in case of a breach in the wards at Longbottom manor. The alert had sounded in the Ministry and the aurors had reacted reaching the Apparition point outside Longbottom estate within minutes and rushing in to subdue, just as Bellatrix and Rodolphus had started to cast Cruciatus, the Torture Curse, upon the couple, who were withering and screaming on the manor floor, while wailing sounds could be heard from within the manor, presumably from Neville's nursery. The aurors had carted the quartet to the Ministry in full body bind, with magic suppressing shackles on their wrists, and their wands taken away, although subduing Bellatrix Lestrange had been a task that took four aurors, and then too, one of them had to be taken to St. Mungos. Frank and Alice had to stay in the Hospital for a few days, but, much to everyone's relied, there was no permanent damage, and they were released after a week and a half.

The subsequent months saw the Potters, the Longbottoms along with the entire wizarding world carrying on with their lives like usual. Unfortunately, this also included a significant amount of Death Eaters pleading innocence and claiming the Imperius Defence, a law dating back hundreds of years, to get away Scott free, and become respected members of the society. This process could have been stopped, and the Death Eater trials could have included a Veritaserum test as well, if the combined might of the Potters, the Blacks, and the Longbottoms had put pressure on the Wizengamot, but amidst all the chaos surrounding Halloween and then the attack on Longbottom Manor, money changed hands under the table, and the trials were conducted in a swift manner, with most of the purported Inner Circle released back into free society, while the devout followers of the Dark Lord, including the Lestranges, Antonin Dolohov, Walden Macnair and others were carted to the maximum security wing in Fort Azkaban.

Peter Pettigrew had also been caught, a week from Halloween, near the country's borders, scurrying away as a rat, trying to exit Britain, but the anti-animagus wards had been erected with surprising efficiency, and Peter Pettigrew was never the smartest of wizards, so laying a trap and laying in wait had borne fruit, and the rat had fallen into their trap, and sent on a one way trip to Azkaban.

-Scene Change-

After months of travelling all around the world, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore had returned to Britain, full of knowledge and wisdom, that might have been interesting at any other time, but was not what he was looking for.

As the Headmaster of the Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry entered the castle, he was greeted by an irate witch, a woman who looked to be in her early 50s but was actually over 70 years of age.

"Albus! You are back ! And right in time for the New Year Celebration as well! Why, I thought that you had permanently made me the headmistress of the school and went adventuring around the world," said Minerva Mcgonagall, transfiguration Professor, and the current acting Headmistress of Hogwarts in the absence of Albus. She looked absolutely drained, with black marks under her eyes from lack of sleep, but also mildly relieved, for the last few months had been quiet stressful, what with a lot of parents sending their children to the school again, the admission of a great number of muggleborns, the still ongoing celebrations across the country, that tended to spill over to the mundane side, and had to be contained by a growing team of Obliviators - that was becoming more and more skilful at the usage of their primary spell, having Obliviated thousands of individuals over the few months - , and most importantly, the remnants of the dangerous, and sometimes even deadly rivalry among the houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin, that was just starting to calm down into a more manageable state. Overall, Albus could see that Minerva was starting to look all 70plus years of her age, rather than what she looked like, even during the height of war.

"Why Minerva, I thought you enjoyed being in-charge of your little Gryffindors, being in-charge of a few more could not be much more difficult, could it?" he replied with a twinkle in his eyes that was far too infuriating for the Acting headmistress, as they both continued to move along the corridors, both the magicals moving with gracefulness and speed that people their age could not hope to possess, and finally reached the staircase that led to the Headmasters' office.

"Ah cannae….Ye baw juggler…." She practically hissed, shifting to her native old Scottish gaelic language out of sheer habit, as she contemplated lighting his beard on fire, if that would get his twinkle to tone down somewhat.

The statue parted away without the need of a password, and they both climbed along the staircase, to reach an office that would have just about all the muggleborns, and even a lot of halfbloods and purebloods looking around in awe and astonishment, at seeing the vast office, with an ornate chair behind the desk, and a room so full of magical trinkets, left behind by previous headmasters, that it would have taken months, if not years to figure out all of them. A dusty old hat rested on a bookshelf, and finally, a red and gold creature, out of myth, rested on a perch, awaiting the arrival of its companion.

'The office hasn't changed at all, still the same way as I left it, truly, you are my most loyal and trustworthy friend after all, Minerva," thought Albus while feeling the warmth in his heart at this gesture from his close friend and confidante.

He sat down on his chair, while Minerva sat patiently in another, across the desk from the Headmaster, patiently waiting for him to start talking.

"I believe your quest was unsuccessful then," she asked after it looked like the silence would linger for more than a minute.

Albus gave a loud and expressive sigh, as he pressed his elbows on the table, leaning forward to look in his Transfiguration professors' eyes as he replied, "Alas, Minerva, my quest was indeed a failure. 2 months and I still have no idea as to what happened at the Potter Cottage on the night of Halloween. I have many theories, mind you, but they are just that, theories, and until I know more, I cannot fully reach a meaningful conclusion."

"So, are you going to go again, Albus! You know you can't leave the castle for too long, you have responsibilities as the Headmaster," said an irritated Minerva, she wanted her Gryffindor house back, Albus could get back to handling the school, she was entirely too happy with her job as a transfiguration professor, thank you very much.

Albus sighed tiredly, rubbed his half-moon spectacles and replied, "Yes Minerva, I am very much aware of my responsibilities as the Headmaster of the school, the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot as well as my duties as the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW. I will not be leaving Scotland for this long, not for quite some time, but now, I have to talk to someone else, so that they can take over this task," he ended while leaning back in his chair, apparently finished with the conversation.

Minerva understood his need to be alone, even if she was a bit miffed about it, but regular business was in progress now, and she had her duties as Deputy Headmistress, and Head of Gryffindor House to take back, so she got out of the chair, moving towards the staircase, although she did turn around near the end, asking one of the questions on her mind.

"But who will be able to take over this task, surely nobody is as skilled and qualified as you are Albus," she asked, aware of the capabilities of her mentor of one time, and her friend.

"The only people who would be able to continue this search my dear, will be the ones who have the primary source of this quest, and who may be able to get some answers, by letting their daughter interact with the highly skilled individuals in their own fields of magic," he answered, and upon seeing the look of realization on her face, continued, " Yes, Minerva, it is time for the Potters to go looking for answers by themselves, and perhaps take little Olive with them, so that their quest may bore fruit."

A/N-1: So this was the epilogue, I know, not much dialogue but bear with me, the story won't have so many long paragraphs without dialogue for a very, very long time. Also, please ignore the minor mistakes in my writing, as I said, I would be taking a BETA reader, only if the story has any takers.

A/N-2: Also, this would not be one of those angsty, drama fics, with 'forgive me, forgive me not' sequences in the Potter household, I have read too many of those. My Harry would be having fun instead, having hilarious and sometimes dangerous adventures that may very well have landed in the Boy-Who-Lived books in the Potterverse, if anyone knew about them.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: So, I decided that the prologue, seemed a bit generic, even though I did try to deviate a bit, from canon, and most fanon, but still, it needed a good deviation point, and that is what is seen here.

Enjoy the chapter, and please review, your constructive criticism would be highly appreciated.

The Subsequent Years

It had been more than three years since that Halloween night, and these three years had brought a lot of changes in the life of one Harry Potter, some quite small, while some that would prove to be life-altering.

In the months after Halloween, Harry had spent whole days, just thinking about that night, reliving the nightmare and trying to make some sense of what had happened. If only he had taken this matter to his parents, or any other adult, a lot of things would have become a lot clearer, and the future would have turned out to be very different from where it was headed, but with a stubbornness that only a four-year old could possess, he had decided that he was a big boy and big boys certainly did not run to their mummy's and daddy's for every little problem they had. He had thought about the issue for days, and had many theories, theories that made a whole lot of sense in his mind, including but not limited to, Merlin time travelling to save his family, because that would be all kind of awesome, bad man Voldy eating all the sugar candy they had for Halloween and bursting from all the happy -happy sugary goodness, which would be gross but still awesome, or his favourite one, where he was a superhero with superpowers, admittedly, these theories only made sense to a four-year old, and most of them were made because they were cool and awesome.

In fact, he had even tried to see if he had any real superpowers, although that hadn't gone really well, with an outburst of his magic breaking up the entirety of furniture and everything else in his room, when he had tried to literally pull superpowers out of himself with a roar, that was more of a cute purr, although no one else other than the house elves was at home during that time, and the prospect of facing his mother with a totalled room had frightened him so much that he had ended up repairing most of the room by willing his magic, a feat that would have been considered impossible to do for most adults without a wand, and many adults even with one in hand, but since it lacked any flashing lights and cool sounds, it didn't seem like a big deal to Harry.

It in fact, would have been a big deal for his family, and his mother would surely have had a reaction, if any of the adults, were in fact, at home, instead of going to new and awesome places around the world, leaving him here, mostly all by himself, with just the Potter house elves for company, and an occasional minder or two to check up on him, once in a while. It had seemed incredibly unfair to Harry, that everyone else got to see all the Dragons, and the magical places and have fun, but James and Sirius had taken him aside, and tried honeying the words up a bit for him, telling him that they had work to do and these were not going to be fun trips, this along with the fact that they had told him that his little sister was not well, and visiting the new places would be mostly for treatment purposes (a half-truth at best, for they would in fact be visiting places in order to for Olive's mysterious power, its' just that they would also be having some fun travelling), had made sure that little Harry had agreed to act like a big boy and stay at home.

Rest of the time, when not on their expedition, everyone of them had jobs, with James and Sirius having to spend most of their time at the Auror Corps, and Lily heading the Charms division, they were home only for sleeping once or twice a week. Remus was even busier, and when he was not busy with the Potter quest, he was looking for a new job, or trying to hold an old one in the muggle world.

No reason had actually being given to him for why he could not go with the family, but Dumbledore had urged the Potters that this task needed their utmost attention, and taking care of two, instead of 1 child would have been cumbersome, and a deterrent, and so the Potters had decided to leave Harry behind, with Sirius and Remus taking turns in staying at the Potter manor, along with the occasional help of the Longbottoms and the Tonkses. Of course, that had been the initial plan, but this plan had gone badly from the start, with Sirius and Remus never taking the time to make a schedule, and one of them always finding themselves busy with work, thus one of them always being with the travelling Potters, and everyone assuming that the other had stayed at home, this, combined with the fact that Sirius and James had completely forgotten to inform Andromeda Tonks or Frank Longbottom of the plan, it had been a whole six months, before they had realised that a four-year old Harry had been living alone in the Potter manor for most of those past six years, and travelling by himself to and fro through the Floo network, to go to school and come back home on his own. The house elves had been responsible for making food and taking care of the house, but that did leave out the fact that they had effectively abandoned their 4-year old for six months. Lily almost had an aneurism, spending half the time fussing over Harry all she could, and the rest half berating herself for trusting the morons that were the marauders, and the rest hexing the living hell out of them, mostly James and Sirius, but Remus was not spared either.

 **Flashback**

" _Good morning my baby, how is my little Harry doing today," asked Lily Potter in a sugary sweet voice as she picked little Harry up, planting a kiss on the top of Harry's head, and on his cheeks, and a few more for good measure, while continuously smothering him in her heavy bosom, an affectionate gesture that had not been present for the last six months of Harry's life._

 _It had been just yesterday, when his parents had come back to the house, and this time both uncle Sirius and uncle Remus had been with them, unlike all the other times before, when only one of the two had been part of the group. Everyone looked like they usually did when they came from their awesome adventures, with James and Sirius laughing at some shared joke, no doubt about the dragon they flew or vampire they fought, while Remus and Lily seemed to be in a serious discussion, sometimes being joined by James and Sirius, with Olive making gurgles and the odd huffs, before her eyes saw Harry._

 _"Hawwy, Hawwy," Olive cooed, trying to reach for Harry unsuccessfully from where she was ensconced in her mothers' arms, while the others finally turned their attention to Harry._

' _Something is missing, there's this thing on the edge of my senses, I can just feel it,' Lily thought as she reached Harry first, who gave her a friendly smile, waving at her, and while Olive gave her own wave back, with flailing arms and much shaking and shifting to somehow fly to Harry, Lily gave a smile and a nod back to Harry, as she moved towards the kitchen, to look at what kind of food, the house elves would be making for tonight's dinner. She gave a look back to the scene outside the kitchen, where James fluffed Harry's hair, much to her son's annoyance ,Sirius had turned to Padfoot, trying to tackle Harry, while Remus had sent down on the couch, the day catching up with him, with a full moon night just three days away._

 _Today had been a rather uneventful day for them, firstly, Remus and Sirius both had been with them for the first time in the six months since they started looking for answers, and then their lead and Dumbledore's contact, for the first time, had been straightforward, and sent them away within five minutes of the meeting, without any annoying puzzles and riddles. While this would have been a blessing as they did not have to go on a wild goose chase again, it had been a mixed bag in the sense that they had literally nothing to do for the rest of their two days in Sweden, and had thus decided to roam around the Gamla Stan, or the old town, where the Swedish equivalent of Diagon Alley, the Magiska Marknaden, or the Magic Market was situated._

 _Once there, they had decided to have some Swedish delicacies for lunch, and made plans to look around the Market till evening, before going home via International Portkeys, and have two-three days of rest in England. Everyone, especially Lily, was looking forward to it, it had been actually two weeks since she had gone back to England, James had been back home the week before, but she had to stay, because where they were, they had to conduct some tests on Olive, and James had gotten an urgent notice from Auror office, so Lily had to endure three days by her lonesome with just Olive for company, before James had come back with Remus. The tests had been somewhat fruitful, but she had missed out on seeing her son at the time, and she was getting anxious after two weeks of distance._

 _As Lily was looking around she noticed something that she had never quite looked for all the previous times she had come back home, another person's presence, or at least an inkling of it, because she was sure that someone, Andromeda, Alice, maybe even Minerva, or someone else would have been with Harry today, as had always been the case for the last six months, since Harry was home and not any of the mentioned ladies' places._

 _Now that she finally had time to not simply collapse on her bed, and actually think back, she realized Harry had always been at home, whenever they came back, it hadn't seemed too odd at the time, but thinking back, the odds that every time that they would be back, Harry would be here and not with any of the others were next to impossible, not to mention that she hadn't seen anyone else at her home other than Harry for the last six months. All of this would have passed like water through her mind any other day before she went to get some sleep into her system, but today, she was starting to get a bigger indication of that something that had been eluding her previously, and the conclusion she was drawing, wasn't to her liking at all. But it still needed to be confirmed, so, as she made a survey of the kitchen and gave her stamp of approval to all the food items being made in haste for their dinner, she called out to everyone._

" _Harry, sweetheart, I wanted to ask you something… ?" she started firmly but her voice turned hesitant and a questioning note was added to it as she met Harry near the kitchen entranceway._

" _Yes mother," Harry replied dutifully, matching her step-for-step, albeit with a slight difficulty, due to her longer stride._

 _Lily Potter was trying to formulate the question she wanted to ask, and it took them reaching the dining area, where Padfoot was dozing on some expansive brown rug, with Remus having a shut eye before dinner, and James was going through some official documentation, probably from the auror office._

 _At last, she gathered the courage to ask, "Harry, sweetie, who has been taking you to school and walking you back every day?" a relatively simple and innocuous question, that for some reason, rang some alarming bells in everyone presents' minds, with James looking up from the papers, Remus peeking through his eyelids and even Sirius' ears perking up, to show he was listening._

 _Harry, unaware of the chaos he was about to cause, proudly declared, "I am a big boy now, mother, I can go to school and come back by myself, I don't even fall out of the Floo like I did," he thumped his chest for good measure, feeling inordinate pleasure, while Lily's face started paling, even James gave Harry a worried glance, Remus' face frowned, as if he was starting to draw the same conclusion, that Lily herself had drawn, not too long ago, while Padfoot stood on all four, sensing something afoot._

" _Uhh, Harry, was Alice and Andromeda busy, or did they tell you that you had to start going school by yourself?" she continued, hoping against hope that she wasn't hearing what she was._

 _Harry, for himself, was puzzled, for he knew those names, for he had met aunt Alice and aunt 'Dromeda, and had a lot of fun with Nymmie too, but he had not seen them for more than half an year, a pity, since he did love playing with Nymmie a lot, calling her Nymphadora, and watching her hair change colour had been one of his favourite activities at one point. But he realized by the tone of his mothers' voice, that this was something serious, and giving the wrong answer would be very bad._

" _Uhh...how would they do that….but I haven't seen them for a long time, why, are they coming for dinner, is Nymmie coming, is she, is she….," he asked quite excited at the possibility of having a playing partner, because there was not much to do inside the Potter manor, other than trying to see if you have superpowers, or reading books, and while he loved books, he was still only four, and four-year olds were not known for their attention spans._

 _By now, everyone was looking at everyone, a horrible feeling of emptiness and dread coming across their faces, Olive, was thankfully asleep for now, or, feeling the atmosphere, she would have surely started wailing, and Lily asked the next question, which made Sirius and Remus look at each other, have a lightning fast conversation in their heads, recoil, and collapse back onto the couches behind them, open mouthed._

" _Baby, sweetheart, uncle Sirius and uncle Remus were not showing you too many pranks when we were gone, were they?" she asked in a trembling voice, looking to be on the verge of crying, while James gave his best imitation of a fish, with his mouth opening and closing every few seconds, and eyes going wider, if it were possible._

" _But Sirius and Remus go with you and father, right, I bet you fight dragons and vampires and do cool things all the time," he replied with a pout, having no idea the chaos every word of his was causing in the Potter household._

" _But…but….Alice was….and you were….and he said….and you….," Lily stuttered, before turning her full attention towards the trio, who had by now, reached the same realization, and were deciding whether to wallow in guilt, or cower in fear, at the angry red wand-tip of one Lily Potter nee Evans._

 _She stopped for a second, handing over Olive to Harry, she was not really worried of him dropping her, because her four-year old son had apparently been living all by himself for the last six months, while she had been off gallivanting all over the world, playing tourist a lot of the time, so she could definitely trust Harry to look after his little sister for a minute or two, while she had some choice….words with the three buffoons in her living room right now._

 _For the next few minutes, as Harry played with Olive, making faces for her, blowing kisses to make her laugh, and having a merry time, he could hear sounds coming from the outside, unclear because of the closed door in the way, but shouts could still be heard._

" _Ouch…Lily…OOOWWW," "No, Lils, not that….AAAAArgh," "Stay in one place you stupid mangy…..OWOWOW" "Lily, sweetheart…..no, no not there, AAAAAA," "GRRGRGR….I am a proud Black, Lily Potter, you will never break meeee, yelp," were just some of the sounds that could be heard, before everything went silent._

 _Harry waited a minute or two, just to be sure, before casting a glance at Olive, who had been trying to recreate the war outside, with just sounds and her flying arms, and stepped out, looking over to where Lily sat on the sofa, sounds of sobbing coming from her direction, while the other three were more or less arranged in a pile, grumbling and murmuring, although all that went silent when they looked at the kids, all three going uncharacteristically quiet, guilt and shame clear on their faces, as they all looked down at the floor, as if hoping that the earth would open up and swallow them whole, to save them from Mt. Lily and the guilt they felt at seeing Harry's innocent face, not showing any anger or hate for them, emotions which they rightly deserved. Instead, Harry was looking back and forth from where his mother sat, to his father and uncles, narrowing his eyes, for certainly they had played some prank to make her cry._

 _Lily looked up, tears rolling down her face, eyes red from crying, as she spoke up, "Six months James, six months, Harry has been living all alone, while we were off playing tourist in every new place we saw, and you forgot… you FORGOT, to inform anyone about him, not Minerva, not Albus, not Alice, not Frank, not Andromeda…NOONE," she was shouting by the last part, before she rounded on Sirius and Remus, Sirius hoping to turn into Padfoot, but Lily's threat of neutering him was too scary, and Remus looking even guiltier._

" _And you both, you could not even talk to each other, six months…SIX months, and no one was home, my poor baby was…." By now, she too had noticed Harry's presence, who was trying to figure out what the big deal was, and why his mother was crying._

 _Upon noticing him, Lily had reached him within a moment, as if by magic, and bent down to hug all of him, not looking like she would ever leave him, chanting , "Sorry, Sorry" all the time._

 _The Potters and the honorary Potters (Remus and Sirius) had stayed at the Potter manor that night, none of them getting much sleep. While Lily's mind had been trying to imagine various scenarios, each more horrible than the other, where Harry would have been kidnapped on his way to school, or where he would say the wrong address, and get lost somewhere on the Floo Network, and even crazier ones. The only time her mind went off Harry was when Olive made a fuss, and had to be attended to._

 _The next morning, lily Potter had been a woman on a mission, she had cooked up the dishes Harry loved the most, that is pancakes with maple syrup (unless Harry had changed preferences in the last six months, a thought that made her tear up a bit on missing out on that), she had arranged the breakfast on the table and sounded out a Sonorus fuelled call for everyone to get down to breakfast. Harry had been the first one in, coming from the outside of the manor, sweating profusely for a child, said "Good Morning Mother!" and rushed up to take a bath and get dressed for school._

 _Lily Potter could not match the image of this Harry with the one who played in her lap, and was still lost in her thoughts when James announced his arrival by planting a kiss on her left cheek, before setting a dressed and grumpy Olive on her booster chair. He had looked at the other booster chair, raised an eyebrow, before muttering "better him than me" and sitting down for breakfast. A bedraggled Sirius, and a well-dressed Remus followed, each looking at the chair, making a complicated face, but then remembering last night and sitting down without much fuss or as much as a word._

 _The last person to come down had been Harry, dressed for school, swinging a backpack, and upon sniffing the pancakes, rushing down the stairs to get to his beloved dish. He had seen two empty chairs, and gone for the normal one before he was picked up by Lily._

" _Here Harry, you will be sitting in your special chair," she smiled, taking him towards the orange-and-yellow booster chair that he used when he was a kid, certainly not now._

 _He cringed away, trying to escape Lily Potter's hold and shouting, "NOOO! I am not a kid, that's a kiddie chair, I am four-years old, FOUR! I am a big boy," as he kept shifting and trying to get out of his mothers' iron-grip._

" _You are older when I say you are older, now get into your special chair and give your sister company, Mister" she said eyes narrowing as she made to sit him on the high chair._

 _Harry cringed at the sight of Olive holding the spoon, lost of the maple syrup drenching her lap, making kissy faces towards Harry, and holding the spoon in his direction. He struggled as much as he could, but he was still a four-year old, and his mother managed to strong-arm him into the chair._

 _She ordered the other three to keep an eye on the kids as she went to retrieve her camera, intending to capture this moment, but as she was walking back, her walk turned into a run when she heard sounds of laughter, and giggles, and of things breaking._

 _When she entered the room, she was greeted to a sight that would never be forgotten for years to come, James, Sirius and Remus, who looked to have been laughing for a while, looked awed, and when she looked in the direction they were watching, she saw Harry, standing where his High Chair had been, the chair itself floating in the room, about ten feet above the ground, Olive was giggling and clapping her hands, while Harry was glaring at the floating object as if it had personally offended him a great deal. This was a case of accidental magic, and Lily would certainly have been in awe of her son showing magic, but was amazing was that he was actually making the chair bunch over itself, bending where it was not supposed to bend, and finally settling on making a crude, ball-shaped high chair, that had somehow exploded into fireworks, an accidental magic feat with control that note even first and second years at Hogwarts achieved. After the little fireworks show, Lily had walked up to him, to see him shift his glare to her, telling her that "he was not a kid."_

 _Next, Lily had gone on to drop Harry off at school, and listened to praises that the other parents had heaped on her son, telling her how he was helpful to everyone, made friend with their son/daughter, helped the children and told them fun stories, and it seemed, had informed when asked by his teachers, that his parents were doing a top secret mission for National Security, it would have sounded silly, if he were not looking so sincere, so everyone had treated her with the utmost respect, as if she was a secret agent in the Queen's Service. It had brought equal amounts of joy and sadness to her that Harry was something of a prodigy, always top of the class, always learning and helping others, always acting mature for his age, the fact that she had not been aware of any of this had hurt, badly._

 **Flashback End**

This had gone on for a week, with Lily putting all the mothering on Harry that she had missed out on in the last six months, even James and Sirius, after the considerable scolding they had received had been spending the entirety of the week showing new magical tricks to Harry and bonding as much as they could with pranks. Unfortunately, it had been a full moon on the third day of the week, and with the added stress of Harry's situation, Remus had to be resting for the whole week. At the end of the week though, Harry was getting tired of the attention.

'Why are they here anyway, I am a big boy, I can go to school on my own, I do my own homework, I can look after myself. They should go away and have their super-awesome adventure, they are probably staying here to make me jealous anyway,' he thought morosely, after another hug from Lily Potter as he was coming down the stairs. At first it had been fun, he had learned to do a lot of pranks from his father and Sirius, but then they had work at the Auror office, his mother, on the other hand, had directed all work to her home office, being a department head, and was looking after and fussing over Harry and Olive in equal amounts.

"Good morning, sweetheart, how is my favourite little boy," she said in an overly affectionate manner that seemed totally out of sorts with her behaviour before Halloween, let alone the last six months, but keeping in line with the last week, so Harry was mostly resigned to it by now.

"Good morning mother," he replied in a tone that conveyed how much he had gotten tired of these overly affectionate gestures, not that Lily Potter seemed to notice it, she had been on a mission to mother her little boy as much as possible and she would not be denied.

Harry exchanged a greeting with his father, not as intensely as his mother, thankfully, and sat down on the dining room table where breakfast awaited, but not before planting a kiss on top of little Olive's head, who's morning it seemed, had been a lot less annoying than his, judging by the constant gurgling and cooing, and by her calling "Hawwy, Hawwy" while flailing her arms from the top of the kids chair, a chair that Harry had barely escaped, when Lily Potter had decided that her baby boy needed a cute looking chair too. That had been the day when the Potters had seen the first instance of accidental magic from Harry as well.

The last week had been fun on one other count though, he had got to meet with little Nymmie again, and she still got all rainbow colour-changing when he called her Nymphadora. The Potters had lunch with the Tonkses twice this week, once at the manor, and once at the Tonks' place.

The lunch had been a somewhat subdued affair at the start, with a little hesitancy and awkwardness due to the two families not having met for more than half years, but all the awkwardness had been thrown out the window when Harry's proud proclamation that he had been a big boy, by living all by himself had directed questioning glances to the couple and Sirius, and when the truth had come out, with some reluctance and through a confused Harry, Andromeda Tonks' scolding of the three had been legendary, and even Ted Tonks' had barely escaped her wrath when he had suggested she stop, only the presence of the three children, - two of them alternating between making funny faces for Olive, and peeking through the doorway, seeing the animated facial expressions of the adults, and without all the shouting, thanks to silencing charms, it had been quite comical – had spared the trio. The rest of the lunch had gradually gotten better, and when Lily had ended up crying due to self-loathing at the end, Andromeda's hug had meant that the relations between the two families had not been irrevocably damaged.

The next lunch had been quite an upbeat affair, on comparison, and Harry had displayed another instance of accidental magic, although he had been confused when everyone had OOHed and AAHed at the tango-dancing cutlery, and proclaimed it 'accidental magic', because he had actually meant to do that. Nymphadora had also entertained Olive with her shifting faces and hair colours, and that's when everyone had witnessed Olive's first bout of accidental magic, changing her hair colour to red, same as that of Nymphadora. This lunch had ended in a better manner than the last one, and Andromeda had, mostly jokingly, threatened to neuter Sirius, if he forgot something like this, ever again.

The dinner affair with the Longbottoms had gone a bit better, in the sense that there had been no Andromeda Black to scare them into oblivion, although upon being informed of the situation of the last six months, Alice had gone blank for a while, face unreadable, and then started casting hexes, that while not dangerous, were quite painful, at that moment, she had forgotten that she was supposed to act civilly, just the thought of a four-year old Neville living alone for four years, had thrown her into righteous fury, and even Frank had taken well placed pot-shots on the lot, although all this had ended on a happy note, when little Neville Longbottom had jumped out of the Harry's arms, gone up and bounced of the ceiling to hover in front of Alice's face, chewing on his right thumb, while making 'come-hither' gestures with his right hand towards Alice.

Promises had been extracted, and the week had been well spent at home, catching up on things, and another meeting, maybe the most important of them all had taken place at Hogwarts, with the Headmaster of the school, Albus Dumbledore, and his deputy Minerva Mcgonagall in attendance. This meeting had gone quiet differently from others, on account of the fact that there had been no hexing involved, except for the time when Sirius had tried to make a joke of the situation, and Minerva had looked at him as if he were one of those objects that she used for demonstration in her classes, and would not at all mind transfiguring him into something nasty, most probably a yarn of wool for her to play with.

She hadn't scolded Lily, but she didn't have to, the look of disappointment had been enough to crush her momentarily, only the fact they still had important things to talk about, had kept the hate-filled glances from Minerva to a minimum, though she still could not comprehend as to how someone could leave their child behind, she had been acting 'loco parentis' for hundreds of children every year, and the thought of even one of them facing a similar situation had been a travesty.

Albus himself, had been shocked, for he had never quite thought about checking on the Potter Heir either, as he too had assumed that whatever arrangements had been made, had been foolproof, though a snide voice inside his head, that sounded a suspicious amalgamation of Gellert and himself said,' you did not think of checking up on him because he is not a part of the prophecy, if it were Olive Potter in place of Harry Potter, you would have found out about the situation in less than a day.'

The thinking, however harsh, was true, for he had not even contemplated checking up on young Harry, where he would have checked twice, if Olive Potter had been in the situation. In fact, it had all been playing out perfectly in Dumbledore's mind, because this way the Potters could make greater strides into their quest to find more about the Power, and starting in two or three years, they could get started the training of one Olive Potter. Harry Potter would have been a distraction in their lives that the wizarding world could not afford with the impending return of the Dark Lord, and putting all their attention on Olive, while giving Harry a normal albeit a bit lonely childhood would have been the ideal compromise, a win-win situation for all.

'It is all for The Greater Good, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the needs of a single person in this case,' he thought as he tried to think of ways he could spin all of this, so that the status quo was maintained, a thought that seemed to be quite impossible at this point, because when he scanned the surface thoughts of the three individuals sitting before him, there was equal amounts of guilt, shame, determination and resolve when it came to Harry, and telling them to leave Harry behind again, was not going to be received well at all. Still, he needed to propose a solution, for everyone was looking at him for guidance.

"I believe all of this has been very unfortunate, adding to the fact that none of us had any idea for the last six months of what had been happening and how little Harry had been surviving all by his lonesome, I personally feel responsible for not checking up on him," he began, with remorse and guilt easily felt in his voice, as the others listened intently to his every word, although they did raise objections.

"You can't think like that Albus, it was our fault, not yours, we never told you that we would be leaving Harry at home, and we never did contact anyone else nor did we make any other arrangements, it is we, who are to blame," James, who had been far too subdued till now, replied in a voice filled with deep self-loathing.

Albus had taken a relatively longer pause at this point, knowing that the next words he would be saying would not be endearing him with any of the four persons present in his office. He mentally prepared for the arguments he would have to make, and if it came to that, the compulsions he would have to cast on the personnel present, for despite the fact that the people in this room were among those he trusted the most, he could not afford to take any chances when it came to the fate of the wizarding world.

"Whatever may have happened, I believe that you have yet to find definitive answers, and thus, you must continue to travel to the other magical places, so that we can know more about Olive's power, and how we will have to go about training her in it. Young Harry's situation will, unfortunately, have to remain unchanged, for which I am truly regretful." The reaction to his last statement had been explosive to say the least, in the next instant, Lily Potter had crossed over his desk to hold her wand between his eyes, tip glowing, hard-green eyes demanding an explanation, while Minerva had been of two minds, whether to try and disarm Lily, or to point her own wand at Albus. James and Sirius, while not quite to the same intensity, looked ready to support Lily.

The further conversation had been heavy, with Albus explaining to the adults present that it was impossible to reverse the situation completely. The fact that their travels had started to yield minor, if somewhat successful results, had played a part in Albus insisting that they continue to leave harry behind. He had also reminded them of the first and only time they had taken Harry with them, just about six months ago, where Harry had been a fussy little child, wanting to go on adventures and never sitting in one place. They hadn't managed to achieve anything fruitful there, in spite of the fact that the monks of Nepal, to whom Albus had directed them to, had been their most prominent lead when it came to solving the puzzle that was Olive's power. Handling two children, along with explaining their situation to the monks, even with the help of James and Sirius, had been too much of a task for Lily, and the constant proclamations of Harry to take him back to school, because 'it is sooooo boring here' hadn't helped her mood either. That had been the last time they had taken Harry with them.

Albus had also insisted that pulling a young child away from his social circle would cripple his social growth and his willingness to make friends, and so the best choice for them would have been to leave Harry home. All of this had of course been helped along by his subtle wandless casting of a mild compulsion from under the table on the unsuspecting adults. He had justified it in his mind as working for The Greater Good.

In the end, a combination of compulsion charms, extensive talking with Albus, and a living arrangement - that included would be informing the Longbottoms and the Tonkses of their departure so they could keep an eye on Harry once or twice a week – but mostly relied on the Headmaster finding a babysitter to look after Harry in their absence, along with the application of various monitoring charms cast by the Chief Warlock himself, had been barely enough to convince the quartet (with Remus having joined them for the last bit of the conversation), to continue their travels. Remus and Sirius had suggested at one time that they would look after Harry, but the look Lily had sent their way had been more terrifying than anything else they had seen, and they had kept their mouths shut thereon.

And so, the next two-and-a-half years had passed. The day of parting, even if it was only temporary, had been quite emotional and Lily had repeatedly assured a thoroughly confused Harry that 'mummy would be back as soon as she could' while suffocating him in a truly bone crushing hug, James', Sirius' and Remus' hugs had been more manly but had contained the same unspoken message, and even little Olive had sensed something off with the situation, crying for Harry repeatedly, before Harry had cradled her in his arms, seemingly with extra care, a scene that had brought tears to Lily's eyes, and putting her down in her crib when cute little sleeping sounds could be heard coming from her.

Albus had been quite diligent in his application of the monitoring charms initially, and even tied the charms that measured his heart beat, breathing rate and body metabolism, to a device in his office. He had even tried to hire babysitters, but that plan had fell apart due to a lack of people available to look after someone else's baby, when most ladies had their own to entertain. This had been a minor detail, that Albus had omitted telling the others about, fearing that this would bring the Potters running back home, when instead they were talking with important people, learning things that could be of vital importance for the future of the wizarding world, and creating the details for the planning of their daughters' training, the last one at his own insistence.

For the first few weeks, Alice and Andromeda too, had practically been living at the Potter manor, sometimes taking turns, sometimes working together, or at other times, taking Harry with them to play with Neville or Nymphadora. The enthusiasm of the first few weeks, had toned down in the subsequent months, with Harry adjusting to a normal routine at school, and the visits from his aunts Alice and Andromeda - a title he had shyly called them by at different times, but had been readily accepted by his newly dubbed 'aunts' instantly – had gradually been reduced to once or twice a week, there were no issues regarding security at the manor, what with James having activated the 'War Wards' at the manor with only a select few people keyed into it, and the monitoring charms were considered enough for Harry to make his daily trips to school.

After another year of living alone with a visit from one of his aunts every other week, and his going to their homes for dinner and fun, Harry had started to mature up quite a bit. He had always been a bright student, always scoring the highest marks and always helping others, a quality inherent in himself and further ingrained from lessons, lessons that he had learned and continued to learn from the portraits hanging all over the place in the manor. The lack of a constant parental figure in his life evident from the fact that the Longbottoms and the Tonkses, along with monthly visits from Hogwarts Transfiguration Professor, Minerva Mcgonagall, were the only times he saw a person from the wizarding world, and the portraits had taken up the mantle when it came to teaching their heir what all he needed to know. The needs of the house were taken care of by the house elves, who had refused to take him anywhere without explicit permission from the Master or the Mistress, so that had been a dead end for him to go to the Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, one of which he had visited just once or twice, and the other, he had never been to.

The confinement from the wizarding world, and the only place he knew about in the muggle world being his school, Harry had become very interested in books. That interest had peaked when he had started to gain an even better understanding of the words he read, and also when he had started reading the magic books, his hunger for learning to do awesome stuff like he read in stories developing into actual interest with time.

His mind was like a magical sponge when it came to absorbing knowledge, and was it not for the fact that he devoted most of his time outside of school to learn about magic instead of learning about mundane stuff, his academic excellence would have seen him labelled a prodigy among prodigies. Of course, he was still one of their better students, joining the Karate class at the age of six, that, along with all the running and jumping he had been doing since childhood, made for a workout routine that kept him from gaining too much baby fat and pudginess, as was often the case with children his age.

Harry had even advanced far enough to start reading books about a person's health, and with the help of the portraits' guidance, had started to develop a challenging physical regimen for a six year old, along with the beginnings of a mindscape, courtesy of the books on Occlumency and lessons from one Hardwin Potter, his great-great-great-great grandfather who had been delighted by Harry's progress, while snidely commenting on his father James' impatience that had stopped him from forming anything more than the barest of mental defences.

With the school becoming less challenging with time, and even reading ahead becoming boring, he had decided to learn a second language, after his grandfather Fleamont's portraits' comments regarding it being the most romantic language, whatever that meant.

His Karate lessons had progressed excellently for the next year, and he had recently gained the Brown Belt, a stage which took at least two years for the most dedicated students to reach. He had also continued his magic and French learning lessons, which somehow had started to include dancing lessons, courtesy of the portrait of his grandmother Euphamia. When he had asked about it, he had been informed that it was important, and that was the end of the discussion. It had been hard, at least initially, to learn dancing all by himself, before Harry had learned to temporarily charm the metal statues all across the manor to dance with him. It was not even a spell that he had learned, for charming at this level was too far in his studies, but he had an intuitive grasp of magic, so unique and extraordinary, that the portraits had been stunned into silence, the first time he had shown them his magical skills. Of course, Harry had been unaware of the significance and rarity of such skills, and even still, had started to gain just a basic understanding of how far ahead he was in magic, as compared to even first and second years at Hogwarts.

The only thing that he regretted was not being able to fly on his broom. All the brooms had been charmed a few years ago, to not float more than four inches above the floor, and Sirius and James had been scared sufficiently by Lily to the point that they had refused to take the charm off, and with any of the adults rarely being home, Harry had never really got a chance to ask them about it. The reason for charming had been ridiculous as well, at least in Harry's opinion. When he had turned four, he had taken his training broom for a ride, roaming around the manor grounds at speed and shouting for the world to see. He had attempted one of those moves he had seen in a match he had gone to watch with his parents, the Wronski Feint had been fun, and he had not even got any injury. But the instant Harry had pulled out of the dive, Lily had screamed, the next few minutes had seen her berating Sirius for cheering Harry while James had tried to look sheepish, Remus had even given a little wink to Harry, that Lily had unfortunately seen, and in her anger, charmed all brooms to ban flying in the Potter estate.

When Harry had turned seven, he had enjoyed the party he had been given, but the gifts that everyone had given him were so childish, they just went on to prove that nobody really knew him. The sad thought that permeated through his mind, that his family didn't know him enough to give him the gifts he wanted, like books or magical things, instead of the toys and colouring books he had been given, he had even turned down the proposal made by James to take him along with them to the next place they were visiting, that place being in France. At any other time, Harry would have jumped at the chance of finally having a trip with the others, and to a place where he could test his new language, but the fact that it had taken them three whole years to ask Harry to come with them, spoke volumes on the matter of how much they thought of him, and he had turned them down.

James, who had already planned all the fun stuff they were going to do, had been flabbergasted, and the mood of the party had gone down from there. The party had ended with everybody going back to their homes, and the Potters having an early night in, due to their early morning portkey to France, but not before nine-year old Dora had given Harry a hand-wrapped gift and kissed him on the cheek, before blushing and running off to the Floo. While Sirius had given him a conspiratorial wink and James a huge thumbs up, he had been mostly confused.

So, when morning came and James had once again asked him if he hadn't changed his mind, Harry replied in the negative, making the others depart.

"Topsy!" he called for the help who was mostly in charge of cleaning and the one who kept a watch on him during school on Lily's orders.

"Yes, young Master Harry, how can Topsy bes of assistance to yous," she asked, ears flapping, eyes eager to be given an order by her master.

"Nothing much Topsy, but could you please stay at the manor today instead of coming after me, you see, I am going to the Library, and sometimes, your presence there can be very distracting," Harry replied with a smile, turning and already beginning to leave.

Topsy was more or less stunned by the fact that young master could see her, not even old Professor Dumblydore could see house elves, she had heard from her fellow brethren, and he was the most powerful wizard in Great Britain, so how powerful was her young master to do what no one else could?

Dazed, she just mumbled, "Yes, master," before vanishing towards the manor grounds, which had gotten dusty and messy because of the storm last night.

Harry quickly took the Floo network to appear where he usually did, an abandoned Potter property that was used more or less as a means of entering the muggle world, from another place, instead of The Leaky Cauldron, and which was quite close to his school.

But Harry was not here to go to the Library today, instead he was going to try to do what he had never tried before, he was going to APPARATE!

He had a picture of his mother standing in front of the alley, the background in full view, and he was going to use this as a focal point for apparating. He had asked his grandfather about teleporting, and read the books regarding the three D's of apparition, he had even tried small distance apparating, and it had been really fun, getting from one place to another without walking, and now he wanted to go to Diagon Alley. He had his pocket money, all the money he had received in the last three years, all 65 galleons, 28 sickles and 11 knuts that he had been saving for just such an occasion.

He had held tightly onto the money pouch, concentrating on his mothers' picture, her background and where he was going: Destination, focused on the fact that he was going to reach there: Determination, turned his heel, focusing on the nothingness surrounding him: Deliberation.

A/N: The second chapter, that got totally out of hand in trying to summarize three years of Harry's life, but next chapter onwards, its adventure time!

Please review, your constructive criticism is highly appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: So despite the lack of reviews, I have decided that I would be continuing this story for as long as I there are readers for it, and thus the updates are spaced very close to each other.

Please review people, it will really help me in rectifying my mistakes and presenting an even better story for you readers.

Once again, please forgive any minor mistakes in spellings and please do review, it would help me in making my story better.

Ch – 3 : A Day in Diagon and beyond

Harry Potter disapparated from the property with a distinct Crack, reappearing in front of a solid brick wall, stumbling slightly, having experienced apparating for the first time on his own, before he stabilized himself .He looked around upon regaining his senses, breathing a sigh of relief at not having been seen by anyone .He realised that he had been quite lucky this time around, as his little body, while taller and stronger than most seven year olds, was still a far cry from an average person in height, and anybody who would have seen him would have tried to find out whose child he was, and if his mother, or Merlin forbid, his aunts had gotten even a whisk of his unsanctioned trip, he would have been quite finished.

He vowed to be more careful from next time onward, looking towards the brick wall, that was the entrance to Diagon Alley, if his memory served him right. It took him a minute of staring into the wall to remember that one had to tap a specific sequence of bricks to enter the Alley, and since his last trip here had been nearly three years in the past, the exact combination of bricks eluded him.

He had just about resigned himself to waiting for some adult to use the entrance from either side in order to slip in, when he remembered something he had read in a book regarding magic sensing or as it was commonly referred to as, 'mage sight'. Most of the terminology had been too difficult to understand, even for someone who read as many books as he did, but he had understood that people could gain 'mage sight' through training, for some, that training took many years, even decades, and even the most dedicated and talented magical had been known to take half an year in the most extreme cases, although this was the case for the wizards hailed the best in a century, and true mage sight was not even a skill accessible to all the people, only a dew had the right aptitude for it.

While all this had been very interesting for Harry, the thing that he recalled at this time was the mention of a bastardized version of mage sight, known as 'wizards' vision', a temporary enhancement to one of the person's senses, the eyes in most cases, to detect magic and its usage. The spell, which was very energy extensive, was mainly used in dangerous raids and ambushes by aurors, to detect traps and presence of hidden personas, and was quite difficult to learn, although its touch equivalent, while not as useful, was comparatively easy to learn.

'There is no harm in trying, I don't have anything to do here anyway, this way, maybe I can have even more time to explore the Alley,' Harry thought excitedly. Having a possible way that would stop him from getting bored to death in between the brick wall, and what was most assuredly The Leaky Cauldron - the pub which connected the magical world with the muggle one in London, and where there was nothing for him to do or see - excited him, and the prospect of feeling the magic through his fingers pumped him up.

He had to keep trying to learn the charm for more than half an hour now, feeling indignant at the fact that no one had used this entrance for all this time, especially since he had heard from every magical person he knew, that Diagon Alley was the most frequented magical market in Britain.

Finally, just when he started to get some sort of unusual feeling on his fingertips, a family of four exited the pub, heading for the Alley, a brown-skinned, black-haired, hazel eyed man in his late twenties , who looked to be of Asian descent, most probably an Indian, though Harry had not met many Indians or Asians to compare him to, was holding the hand of a girl who looked to be about Olive's age and was jumping up and down excitedly, saying something or the other to her father which made him smile back at her proudly.

The little girls' twin, on the other hand, was holding the hands of her mother, a really pretty lady with a dusky complexion, having onyx eyes and black hair, though unlike Harry's own messy birds' nest, hers were long and silky and came down to her back, ending in beautiful curls, she too, like her husband, looked to be in her twenties. She too was answering her daughter's questions, but this twin seemed to be the calm one, and the mother kept looking at her husband in fond amusement every now and then, who it seemed, was running out of answers.

'It looks like I am not the only one who is here for the first time,' he thought morosely at the sight of this happy family, with both the parents listening to their kids' questions with pride and amusement, made him think of his own family. This was one of the few times that he wished that he too had a normal family, and that his parents too would take him to various places, and not just Diagon Alley. But he knew for a fact that it was not possible, that his family would never be like others.

As the years had gone by, taking care of himself had matured Harry a lot, and his own understanding of his circumstances, along with the teachings, courtesy of the various portraits, had clued him in on the fact that the love and affection that his family and for Olive, was a lot more than what he would ever receive from them. Sometimes, the tight control that he had on his emotions had slipped. All those moments, few as they were, ended with him in the privacy of his room, raging, screaming to the heavens, crying, and breaking stuff, just trying to find the answer of why he had been affectively abandoned, why he had been left alone at home while the others were out together, as a family without him. He understood their reasons on why they had to take Olive, he even agreed that they should get the best treatment for his sister, but he never understood why he was left behind. One good thing that happened due to his bouts of aggression and rage, he did not bottle up his feelings and came out of these episodes stronger each time. Another minor benefit was that due to the continuous breaking and repairing of furniture and other things in his room, and sometimes other rooms, Harry became very proficient with the use of 'Reducto' spell and 'Reparo' charm, to the point he could cast them with barely a thought.

At one point, he had even tried dropping subtle hints on his parents to take him with them for once, but after the time when they had stayed for a week with him at home when he was four-and-a-half, they had never been around for more than two days at a time. Sometimes, it had even felt like they may be thinking of actually taking him along, but the shake of their heads, for the third time in as many months, had been the last of a then, five-years and three-months old Harry's attempts to persuade them.

He had accepted his lot in life, and learned to find and appreciate joy in the small things, like when he would try to copy Nymmie's face changing attempts unsuccessfully, sometimes leading to uncontrolled bouts of laughter from the adults when he would inadvertently use magic to make fashion disasters happen , or when he would sometimes watch an action film with Ted Tonks, trying to mimic the stunts shown on TV, or when Andromeda would correct his dinner table etiquettes in a soft but stern manner, pulling on his ear until he gave in to her orders, or when he would tickle baby Neville to hysterics, or play pretend duels with Frank, or help Alive in the kitchen and learn cooking himself. While seeing these people once or twice a week could never entirely overcome the absence of his parents from his life, it was the time that he spent with them, watching, observing, learning and replicating their actions that formed the core of Harry's moral compass, something that he, along with a lot of other people would be grateful for in the future.

Harry was still imagining himself and Olive in the twins' places, with Lily and James holding their hands, when he was broken out of his thoughts. The family had noticed his presence, perplexed by the little figure standing in the corner, a hood over his head obscuring his face. They would have certainly moved on, wary of the shadowy figure standing in the corner, if not for the fact that Harry's head had peeked through his hood, curious green eyes looking in their direction, head tilted cutely, an image that would have many-a-mother instantly doting on him.

Harry himself, finally broken out of his thoughts, was wondering whether he should wait for the family to open the entrance and then run for it, wait for them to go and then try to sense the entry bricks, or try asking them for help in entering. And while he really wanted to see if he could try to make his 'magic touch' work, manners and politeness had been drilled into him from not one, but two mother figures in his life, so he decided to lift his hood up and approach them.

Vaidehi Patil was a woman of many hats. She was a loving mother and wife to her kids and husband, she was the charms expert who had given lessons to her junior Lily Potter in school, lessons that had helped and pushed Lily Potter towards becoming one of, if not the best Charms Mistress on the continent, she was the inventor of a lot of seamstress-related and dress-up charms used in the wizarding world of Britain and even beyond, she was the manager of the Patil family that her husband had inherited and she had become a part of, after marriage. But first of all, she was a kind person.

She was the one who had seen Lily Potter, a then first-year, practicing second year charms and struggling with them. A third year then, Vaidehi had seen a fellow Charms enthusiast in Lily, and taken her under her wing, giving her frequent lessons and helping Lily on her way.

She had been the one who had helped protect a group of first years, when Hogsmeade had been attacked in her seventh year, using her charms prowess to save the children from harm, and barely escaping with her life.

She had also been the one who had saved her newly married husband Arjun's business at the time when his father had been killed during the war, leaving a son down in the dumps, and a business that if left alone, would have degraded to nothing. She had displayed her business acumen and sharpness, while also at the time taking care of her grief-stricken husband.

No one who knew her could ever say that she lacked in any department, whether it be mind or body. And no one could deny her kindness and compassion either. So when Vaidehi Patil saw a young child staring back at her family in the back of the Leaky Cauldron, he could not help but look in his eyes. There was a maturity in them, the one that came with growing up, though his eyes also held the curiosity and innocence of a child, and when he tilted his headed, she could not help but walk over to him, to find if he needed help of some sort.

"Hello little guy! Are you lost here," she asked in a soft voice, bending down to look at him, though she did not have to bend much, for the child in front of her was either not as young as she had thought, or very tall for his age.

Despite being quite mature for his age, Harry's social circle did not go beyond the two magical families he visited every week and the classmates he had in school, thus, when he found a very pretty woman talking to himself, smiling and giving him all her attention, he felt very self-conscious and tried to pull the hood down on himself a bit more, an action that Vaidehi found very adorable.

"Oh, h-hello Miss, I was wondering if you could help me get into the Alley," he answered shyly but politely cursing his stutter and hoping that she would not ask about where his parents were, and that he would not have to make a run for it.

"You see….," he tried to think up an excuse before he was interrupted.

"Oh, you poor dear, you must have gotten left behind when your parents went to the Alley, come with me, we'll help you find them," she assured him.

Upon seeing his hesitation, she added, "Oh, how silly of me! I did not even introduce myself. I am Vaidehi Patil, and this here is my little munchkin, Padma!" she replied with a little chuckle and a nod towards the little girl hanging off her arm, as Padma also smiled shyly in Harry's direction.

Harry decided to follow behind them, while trying to keep his face hidden. He had remembered the woman's name, for his mother used to talk with the same woman from time-to-time through the Floo. He did not _think_ that she had ever come to Potter manor, or if she had then he did not remember, but she was one of the few that his mother had still kept in touch with even now. Lily Potter Floo called the woman walking in front of him once every month or so, and he dearly hoped that none of those calls had included any sort of description of his person given by his mother.

"Hello Vaidehi, I see, you have got a guest with you," Arjun Patil asked his wife with a smile, while giving a curious glance towards the little figure walking behind her, raven locks peeking from under his hood.

"Ohhh, darling! This poor dear got lost at the entrance, I think his parents are in the alley, and he is trying to get in, aren't you…" she turned towards Harry at the last bit, her smile trailing off as she remembered that the little guy had not given her a name.

"Harry, Mrs. Patil," he replied politely, hoping that she would not make the connection.

Thankfully, she didn't, for the thought that her good friends' son was here all on his own, a son who's mention she had barely heard in passing, would never even enter her mind. She just gushed at how lovely his name was while patting his head, before turning around and ordering her husband imperiously, to "open the magic gateway, my good sir, so that we can unite this young man with his parents," though her giggle at the end ruined any menacing effect it was supposed to have, resulting in her husband giving her a mock salute and an 'Aye, aye, my Lady,' and sending her daughters into bouts of laughter. Harry himself gave a chuckle at her behaviour.

Harry watched the man, Arjun, he had heard his name, tap the bricks, remembering the sequence (from the trash can, three up and two across) and trying not to show any outward signs of excitement as he waited to see the magical place for the first time.

The brick that the man had touched quivered – it wriggled – in the middle, a small hole appeared – it grew wider and wider – a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for someone twice Arjun's height, an archway on to a cobbled street which twisted and turned out of sight.

"Now Harry, we know that you must have been to Diagon a few times with your parents, but this is the first time we are bringing our girls, so you also get the grand welcome," Arjun said, a wide smile on his face as he took a step to the side, his hands waving flamboyantly in a grand gesture.

"Welcome," he said, "to Diagon Alley."

He grinned at the girls' amazement; not knowing that Harry too, was looking at the scene in front of him in awe, for his hood hid his expressions.

They took a step forward, and Harry turned around to see the archway shrinking instantly to a solid wall.

Harry looked around, his eyes going to the first shop he could see, where the sun shone brightly on the stack of cauldrons. _Cauldrons – All-Sizes – Pewter, Copper, Silver, Gold – Self-stirring,_ was written above, on a sign hanging in mid-air.

He had just started to move when a hand on his shoulder stopped him. Harry turned around, remembering that there were people standing behind him, two of whom had started to pull their parents into various directions, awe and amazement on the twins' faces clear as day.

"Ok, munchkins, I know that you are verrrry excited to visit all the shops and see all the fun things, but first, we have to find Harry's parents, they must be really worried about him by now, and then, after we ensure that he is safe with them, we can take you to wherever you want, maybe we can even get ice-creams," Vaidehi reminded them, a look on her face that said that she would not budge on this matter. The twins' sulked at first, but the prospect of seeing everything they wanted, as well as eating ice-cream made them quite down.

Harry, on the other hand, was starting to panic a bit. He could see all around him that it wasn't very crowded, a fact that would prevent him from ditching the Patils' in the crowd. He also knew that if he stayed with them too long, the ruse would be up and then he would be in big-big trouble.

'Whoever is listening, please don't let me get caught, I don't want my first Diagon Alley trip to be my last as well,' he prayed silently to whoever was listening and as if in answer, the archway opened again, at least thirty to forty witches along with a few wizards entering one after the other, talking about some kind of sale.

He saw his opportunity, turned towards the Patils quickly, gave a short bow, manners after all, and vaguely pointing in a direction, said that he could see his parents there and rushed in to become a part of the throng of magical, getting swept away, in the time it took the Patils' to blink.

"Well, that was unexpected," Arjun said, scratching his head and wondering if he should try to find the little wizard. He deemed it a lost cause quickly enough, especially when he heard mentions of 'sale' from the witches rushing by him.

'I have finally got a day when we won't be stopping for hours to shop for clothes in Diagon. I am not about to give that away,' while Arjun Patil loved and admired his wife a lot, there were limits to just how much shopping he could take!

So the Patils moved on, going on to have a really enjoyable day at the Alley, and just about forgetting the sweet, Dark-haired, green-eyed boy, becoming an unknowing witness to the beginning of his adventures.

-Scene Change-

Harry felt ecstatic. There was no other word to describe his emotions. The alley was marvellous and each and every thing here seemed to call him. He kept darting from shop to shop, looking everywhere at once, and wishing now more than ever, that he was a spider, so that he could have six more eyes to take it all in, or maybe even an owl, so that he could see everything in front of him and behind, without turning at all.

He watched a few older kids look inside a glass window, one of them gleefully pointing at a broom inside and saying, "Look, that is the prototype of the Nimbus two thousand, they say that it will be the fastest broom EVER." He had not ridden a broom for a very long time, but Harry himself got a thrill out of imagining himself riding the broom, flying in the sky, faster and higher than anything else.

Looking across the street, he found a sign hanging above a shop that said, 'Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour', and sprinted away, at a pace quite unreal for someone his age. He barely remembered that the Patil family had also mentioned eating ice-cream today, so had a casual look in to see if they were in the shop right now. Not seeing any sign of them, he was near the counter in an instant, seeing the different flavours behind the glass.

 _Apple Crumble, Chocolate Chilli, Chocolate and Raspberry, Clotted Cream, Earl Grey and Lavender, Salted Caramel Blondie and Sticky Toff_ ee _Pudding_ were just some of the mouth-watering flavours of ice-cream he managed read among countless others. Harry really wanted to try and eat every one of them at once, only the thought that he could come back anytime to eat the ice-cream, and that he still had to see the rest of the Alley, stayed his hand, if barely at that.

He ordered a double scoop of Apple Crumble and Sticky Toffee Pudding on a waffle cone, paying the 6 sickles it cost, and walked out of the shop, slurping away at his dual-scooped cone.

Upon exiting, he found screeching sounds coming from the adjacent shop, sounds that he had failed to notice previously because his mind had been fixated on the ice-cream.

'Well, it is very good ice-cream,' he thought happily, not feeling any guilty for having bought a double-scoop, as he took a delicious lick of the mix of apples and toffee.

The screeching sounds were from the Eyelops Owl Emporium, a shop he just looked at from the outside, knowing that he had read about owls and upon seeing his family's as well a few others, really wanted one for himself, and if he stepped in the shop and saw the owls inside, especially one of the snow ones, one that he had only seen for once, watching it pass him by in a magnificent blur, he would not be able to stop himself. And the presence of an owl would raise a lot of questions, and create a lot of trouble for him.

Sighing wistfully and hoping that he could turn eleven in an instant, so that he could have an owl for school, he turned away, walking down the pathway bristling with packs of magicals. When he had come to the entrance, it was still early morning, and, apparently, the crowds started to pour in during the afternoon during regular days. So now, he had to keep an eye on his ice-cream and hope that some random passerby would not collide with him and ruin his delicious treat.

The universe apparently had a sense of humour, because right then, a woman coming out of the apothecary, who looked to be in lost in her own thoughts, evident from the fact that she was muttering angrily, " three galleons for unicorn hair, bloody hoarder, I will find someone else," bumped into him, walking without a pause in her stride, just a "Get out of the, squid" thrown back, while Harry lamented the loss of ice-cream, and looked at his almost empty waffle cone for what seemed like an hour but was actually just five minutes, before he tossed the ice-cream less cone in the nearest garbage disposal bin with a indignant grumble of, "stupid universe, stupid Murphy's law."

Harry continued walking, the sights and shops that he could see making him forget about the incident with the ice-cream, reading over the names of the shops.

Madam Malkins' Robes for all Occasions seemed to be the most crowded shop, and the presence of so many witches made him think that this must be where the sale was. He steered clear of it, having no intentions of trying to enter the shop. He actually quiet liked clothes and wearing different styles, and if somebody talked to him about clothing, they would find that Harry had a fairly decent grasp of fashion sense and colour matching, regardless of age. But the crowd and the remnants of his aversion from crowds ensured that Harry stayed away.

Twilfitt and Tatting's had a healthy crowd too, but from what he could see, these were mostly the people in expansive-looking robes, so it must have been for the elitist pure-bloods.

There were a few vendors occupying empty spaces in front of the shops too, among them an old lady selling flowers. Just as he was passing by the flower lady, Harry had an intuition, that he should buy these flowers. He did not know why, he did not know how he got such a thought, but he didn't want to tempt fate and the universe like he had just done with the flowers, and decided to buy them, 'what could be the harm,' he thought. He just got the feeling that someone out there, was raising an incredulous eyebrow, in response to his thoughts.

"Excuse me, Miss, can I buy some flowers," he asked politely.

The old woman's face lit up, "Of course dear! Which ones would you like," she asked, hands rifling through the different flowers, expecting him to choose from what appeared to be a thousand different types.

She had expected him to pick out what was the best looking, that's what most people did, despite having no clue about the meaning behind the flowers, and even though a child who barely looked eight or nine years old coming to buy flowers from her was quite rare, she expected him to pick some red roses or tulip like others too. That is why, his question threw her off-guard.

"Umm, Miss, is there any meaning behind these flowers….." he asked hesitantly, hoping that he was not asking a stupid question and there was actually meaning behind the flowers rather than them being pretty.

After a few seconds, her eyes lit up, twinkling just like a certain Headmasters' did, although Harry had never met Albus Dumbledore, so this was his first experience with 'twinkling eyes of eternity'.

She went on a relatively long spiel, talking about flowers for about fifteen minutes, though she checked every minute or two, if the little boy was even understanding what she was saying, but seeing that she had his abrupt attention, he was even asking questions, she carried on.

Onlookers were treated with the odd sight, an old woman who looked to be about seventy years of age but was probably over a hundred, was talking with a child less than a tenth her age, who seemed to be listening intently.

Harry was amazed! 'There are so many meanings to the flowers! No wonder there are so many of them!' he thought excitedly, making plans to learn more about the language of flowers, maybe he could even borrow some books from the Longbottoms, Harry had read that their family had always dealt in plants and the entire range of botany.

In the end, Harry stayed there for about half an hour, only when a tempus he cast to the side, away from everyone's eyes, showed that it was nearing noon, did he thank the nice lady, and bought a dozen Yellow Roses from her, he figured that if nothing else, he could give these roses to Nymphadora when they met for the next time. He paid the flower lady a galleon, declining the twelve sickles she gave back, saying that it was a thank you for her lesson, gave a short bow, and then walked away.

The woman smiled as she took back the sickles, shaking her head in fondness at the young man walked away, "You little charmer! You are going to be in so much trouble with the ladies' in the future, I just know it."

-Scene Change-

After having a quick lunch at The Leaky Cauldron, which found him dodging questions about his parents from the bartender Tom, Harry found himself walking along the path, waving with a smile as he passed by the flower lady, quite happy with how his day was turning out to be, because even though he had lost half of his ice cream, he had met a few wonderful people here, including the Patils and the flower lady, and he still had the book shop to see. The yellow roses that he had bought had been shrunk and put inside his pocket with but a thought to shrink them and put some magic on them to keep them fresh.

He had spent a few minutes looking around the joke shop, Gambol and Japes, buying a few of the prank items that he liked, like the acid pops, dungbombs, stink pellets, whizzing worms and a few others. All of these were also shrunk down to a size, away from the eyes of other people, and put in his pocket.

After this he passed by a lot of places, The Offices of newspapers and travel agencies having no importance to him, he also avoided the Gringotts wizarding bank, not because the goblins scared him, since his ancestors had taught him the correct behaviour to show the goblins, "be blunt, be sharp", but also because he did not have any accounts there at the age of 7. Ollivander's was also skipped, with sadness, because Harry really wanted a wand to progress his self-education even further, but wands were only sold to eleven year olds, so this was not an option.

His eyes lit up though, when he reached the Flourish and Blotts, the book shop for all students of Hogwarts and beyond. The shop was mostly empty at the time, so he decided to take his time, browsing through shelves for books that he did not have at the Potter manor library.

There were quite a few of these, including the _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ , for the bumbling animal lover within him, _Ancient Runes Made Easy_ , a subject that had fascinated him, but the books he had found in the library were all too advanced for his level, _Blood Brothers: My Life Amongst the Vampires_ , a few pages into this book, he found it to be very informative, and he could not help but think of having an adventure, fighting against vampires, when reading this book, _Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland_ , for who did not want to know about Dragons, _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_ , because the library only had a similar book for the Nineteenth Century, _The Healer's Helpmate_ , another field that seemed quite interesting to him, but upon which the library mostly had books that catered to Master Healers, Quidditch _Through the Ages_ , to learn more about the sport he had not been able to play much but loved quite a bit, and lastly, _Unfogging the Future_ , because as much as Divination bored him, his ancestors had advised him to gain a well-rounded education.

After browsing through the bookstore for an hour, Harry decided that he had enough books for now, and that he could always come back to buy more, he made his way to the counter.

The person manning the counter, a young wizard who looked to be in his late teens, possibly having graduated from Hogwarts recently, was lazing around on a chair, legs propped up on the counter, taking advantage of a slow day, reading a magazine labelled 'Playwizard', one which he immediately dropped behind the counter when he saw little Harry approaching, with a stack of books so high, that it hid his head from view.

"Hey there, little man, need some help with that!" the young man asked, seeing the strain on the kid carrying the books, his legs wobbling slightly and walking a bit haphazardly, not able to see where the counter was. He lifted his wand from the table, giving a swish and a flick, and with a half-muttered incantation of 'Wingardium Leviosa' lifted the bundle of books from Harry's hands to the counter desk.

Harry thanked him, thinking that he should have brought the books in a few trips, instead of all of them at the same time, because he could not exactly cast a featherlight charm here, where somebody WOULD notice if he could carry about a dozen books easily.

"Hmm, Fantastic Beasts, I love this one, Ancient Runes Made Easy, never quite understood them myself, but to each their own I guess, Blood Brothers, never seen this one," he gave various expressions at every book, giving a narrow eyed look at Harry, when he got to the book about Vampires. Seeing him shrug, the man continued: "Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland, I guess that is a good buy, Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century, hmm, you are a history buff then," he gave Harry another look, who gave another impatient shrug, as if to say, 'get on with it.'

"Ok, fine-fine, little dude, I'll hurry it up, the healers helpmate, quidditch through the ages, and the last one is…unfogging the future…what does this even mean," he asked himself, calculating the total amount.

"So the total rings up to, 14 galleons, 12 sickles and 3 knuts, wow, quite a hefty purchase, but I wanted to ask, who are all these books for, you don't look to be any older than eight or nine, you can't exactly use Runes or Healer spells, you know," the young man asked with a smirk, a slight hint of suspicion and wry amusement in his tone as he twirled his wand around, packing up the bundle and shrinking it for easy carrying.

Harry knew he could asked something like this, so he had an answer ready, "Most of these are for my sister, she is in her third year at Hogwarts and wants to be a healer, the reading books are for me though," glaring at the last part, as if daring the man in front of him to oppose or contradict him.

"Woah woah, little dude, no need to get angry, I was just asking, here take your books," he handed over the shrunken bundle, taking the money. Harry walked out of the shop, his steps hurried, to get away from the curious man, as quickly as possible, he looked back, hearing the man whisper to himself, "what kind of healer reads about vampires and dragons" before shrugging it off and moving back to the chair, the book in hand again.

At last, Harry felt that he was done with Diagon Alley, feeling that he had had a very good and adventurous day, before he noticed that after the Florean Fortesques' Ice Cream Parlour, there were a few shops that were of little consequence, but after that was an area that was purposely being left untouched by many, providing a narrow, slinky pathway to another place, a sign at the entrance of the pathway saying Knockturn Alley.

The Alley somehow gave a dark and foreboding feeling to Harry, and it seemed, to a lot of other people as well, who purposely strayed away from the general area, even taking the longer path, just to avoid going near the pathway. And despite all the warnings going off in his head, and all his common sense telling him to go back home, there was a portion, however small, that believed that today had been a boring day. There was a part of him that thought that his first outing into the Wizarding World should be a grand adventure. And what could a bigger adventure, than venturing into the unknown, the dark and the forbidden. And so Harry pulled up his hood, straightened his back, and walked into the pathway, towards the unknown, towards the dark and foreboding, and for what his heart craved, an adventure.

As he exited the pathway to Knockturn, his senses started to sharpen, reacting to the massive amounts of active magic in the air here, as compared to the passiveness of Diagon. The air became more oppressive, especially for a seven year old quite attuned to his magical senses as Harry continued onward, hood tightened over his head, and willing it to stick with his magic, so that he would not be exposed here. The magic was binding to the senses, and Harry considered turning back for once. By now, he had reached the entrance of The White Wyvern, which seemed to be the equivalent of The Leaky Cauldron in the alley, although the shadiness he felt here seemed to be much more real than the other place. Harry pressed forward, something telling him that he needed to continue on the path. He collided with quite a few people, due to the inherent darkness of the alley and his small stature. A few even called him out on it, hurling abuse at the little 'piece of shit', Harry though, paid no mind to it, walking with purpose in the same direction as when he started.

He passed by a lot of shops, some of which fascinated him, while the big dead spiders and the bones, which looked to be human disgusted and frightened him somewhat. Harry paid them no mind though, because the feeling, of wrongness, of something calling to him, was starting to get stronger. He walked on, paying no heed to the dark and shady figures, his mind focusing on the intense feeling. At last, as it looked like he had reached near the end of the Alley, the feeling became the strongest it had been, before suddenly vanishing, leaving him perplexed. He walked back and forth near the last of the shops, which seemed to be empty for some reason, in fact, now that he noticed, the entire area around him seemed empty, all the people walking near the area before walking away, as if they suddenly saw a wall in front of them.

Harry puzzled over this, trying to figure out what was happening. He tried walking around the area, getting more and more bewildered by what he was finding, when there was a really strong feeling of magic at one point and absolutely no feeling at the next. He continued watching the people too, seeing them replicate the same action again and again, some were doing it instantly, while others hesitated a bit in turning back around. He finally figured out that the whole area was under a massive Notice-Me-Not ward, something that he could not cast by himself, at least not a good one. He also came to a conclusion, that the only anomaly could be the wall. There was literally no other point where there were any abrupt changes in the feeling of magic.

Having reached a verdict, Harry prodded at the wall, trying to find what he was missing, before suddenly, his hand went through, making him panic and scream suddenly. He was thankful for the ward now, as he brought his hand back, examining it for any injuries and finding none, as a few people outside the barrier looked in his general direction for a second, before moving on.

'So, this is a portal, I have never used one myself, I should see where it goes,' he thought excitedly, preparing to go into the portal.

Though as he entered through the portal, all the excitement left him, when he felt the wrongness permeating through the air, the smell of blood, the feeling of dark, twisted magic, and finally, a desperate plea for 'help', from someone, maybe multiple someones ,echoing through the darkness, taunting him, as it went deeper into the pathway.

A/N: So….Done. I wanted to write more, but I felt it an appropriate place to stop, the next chapter will be bigger than this, as a form of compensation for this cliff-hanger of sorts.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N:OK, so it has been more than an year since I updated the story, I don't even know if there are any takers for it, but I finally understand all the other authors' writers blocks. Especially once which happen because your laptop gave up on you and all 100k words that you wrote for the story, evaporated in an instant, like mine did. Finally, finally, I am ready to continue, although I will attach a summary at the start, so that those of you who don't want to, don't have to read the first three chapters.

Summary : Harry Potter, the 4-year old son of Lily and James Potter was in his home with only a house elf and his little sister Olive, when the Dark Lord Voldemort, in his ignorance and fear, tried to end a prophecy. Harry's actions, along with Lily's protection vanquished the Dark Lord and Olive Potter was hailed as the Girl-Who-Lived. The Potters, except for Harry, spent the next three years, travelling around the world, looking for answers about the night, and to find out the 'Power the Dark Lord knows not'. Harry, growing up without a solid adult presence, became an avid reader and listener, learning from books as well as portraits of his ancestors. Never having gone anywhere other than his school, and his aunt Alice and aunt Andromeda's places, the day after his seventh birthday, Harry decided to sneak out to the Diagon Alley, tricking the family elf watching over him, after his parents and uncles had gone for another trip. Harry went around the Alley, taking in the sights and looking at different magical things. After buying some books and having an ice cream and a late lunch, the boy, Harry went towards the Knockturn Alley, hoping to have an adventure of his own. Once there, a very light strand of magic touched his senses, prompting the curious child to follow it into a portal.

Disclaimer : Since I am not Blonde, British or a Lady, I do not own Harry Potter or any of its characters, although any and all OCs are mine.

Enjoy the chapter, and please, leave a review.

"Harry Potter" – saying out loud.

'Harry Potter' – thoughts.

"Harry Potter" – French.

 _Harry Potter_ – Flashback.

Ch – 4 : A Strand of Hope

It was oppressive and overwhelming, the feeling of foul, _foul_ magic in the air, especially to the senses of someone who had started to gain a rudimentary understanding of the magic around him, enough to feel the taint in the air, to feel the enormity of the magic lingering around him, but certainly not enough skill or training to block this feeling. The lingering smell of blood, to top it all, would have sent many a children running back from whence they came, babbling and crying uncontrollably as they tried to describe what they saw and felt.

In fact, under different circumstances, this situation would have played out quite differently. A Harry Potter who would have grown up under the love and care of his parents, learning from them, seeing the power of magicks cast by his mother, by his father, by his uncles and aunts, and, especially by Albus Dumbledore would have gained a respect for authority, a respect for power.

This Harry Potter, with a relatively normal childhood would have gained the tendency to defer to authority figures, especially when coming face-to-face with matters that seemed to be leagues above him in scope. A great quality to have, certainly, but not one that is without its fare share of drawbacks.

In another universe, Harry Potter would have still gone to Diagon Alley, along with his parents and family, to buy tasty treats and pranking items after the day of his seventh birthday. In fact, being the curious child he was, he would still have wandered off into Knockturn Alley, following a sudden whim and chancing upon the portal between the walls. Harry would still have entered the portal, but once inside, he would have gotten scared, the smell, the everlasting darkness, the eeriness, and whatever feeling his magical senses could grasp but not comprehend would have had him fleeing, his limited understanding of magic making him aware that whatever he was feeling, was something that only his father or uncle could understand. His hasty return to the Diagon Alley and to his family would have triggered an unfortunate ward, and after passing of much time, a thoroughly unconvinced Sirius Black and James Potter would have entered the portal, taking due haste upon seeing and sensing what they could, but finding nought but traces of dark magic and rituals, scents of blood, and not a single soul alive, apart from themselves. Ultimately, all it would have done was start a half-hearted search on behalf of the DMLE, which wouldn't have amounted to anything in the end, due to lack of any evidence and eye-witnesses other than a scared seven year old, who could not explain what he understood.

But, all of this would have happened under drastically different circumstances. Currently, as things stood, many things were different in Harry Potter's life. Yes, Harry Potter was quite scared, especially from his magical senses blaring at the foul magic rippling through the air, apart from the smells and silent echoes lingering in the air. Yes, the Potter heir was shivering and shaking quite vigorously. But this Harry Potter did not go rushing back out of the portal, not just because he had no one to go back to, for although that was indeed the truth, there was also the fact that Harry Potter did not think that he could go back and tell ANYONE about this.

The seven year-old had lived practically on his own and taken care of himself from quite a young age, and while he had respect for his family, and quite a lot of it for his aunts and uncles - the Tonkses and the Longbottoms – as well, he respected them for the people they were, and not for the power that he never knew that they had. He knew that his aunt Andromeda was a healer by profession, and his uncle Ted a wizarding lawyer, he also, knew that uncle Frank and aunt Alice, along with his father James and uncle Sirius were Aurors, and his mother was the head of Charms Division, but all of these were mere words to someone, who had never been reprimanded, never been rebuked, never been shown the power of authority, never even been shown the power of magic, period, and thus Harry had always had trouble finding an authority figure worthy of his respect, or seeing any figure of authority doing something at all.

This had led to the fact that Harry did not have any sort of deferential attitude towards authority, and in fact, would have been considered quite rebellious, if not for his well-behaved mannerisms .Although, it was mostly the fact that no situation of a kind had happened before, where Harry would have had to absolutely adhere to an adults' authority.

The conclusion was that, even if Harry wanted to go back and tell someone, he had no idea as to whom to go to regarding this sort of a situation. His parents were out, literally and otherwise, with his sister, all the way to France, along with Sirius and Remus, the Tonkses were an option, but from what he knew about their Professions, he did not know how a lawyer or a healer would be of help here, and while he thought that his aunt Alice and uncle Frank could help in their capacity as aurors, he had no access to the Floo here, and he was not going to go back to the Alley and find the Floo back in The Leaky Cauldron, to call his aunt and tell her about whatever this was, because even IF they were at home, and even IF he could convince them to come with him, he knew a lot of uncomfortable questions would be asked, not just by the Longbottoms, but also by the Tonkses and the Potters – when they were back from France – and any future solo trips would be impossible for a long-long time. If there was one thing Harry valued above much of everything, after all this time, it was his privacy, his freedom and how he had control over his actions, the thought that he could be put under watchful eye by numerous people, his every action monitored, was anathema to him. And thus, the little idea in his head, that he thought sounded like a combination of Aunt Alice and Aunt Dromeda, was squashed before it could even form fully. It was helped further by the fact, that while the magic was giving Harry bad vibes, all the adventure books he had read, The Curse of the Egyptian Princess, The Adventures of Galenos the Gallant, The Dragon and the Warlock, among others, all spoke about dark tunnels, hidden passageways, strange magic and smells, when they described the places where the hero had his adventure, and to a seven-year old, that was interesting enough to blow away any thoughts other than 'WHAM BAM', 'SWORDS CLASH IN THE DARK', 'THE WARLOCK RAISES HIS STAFF…'.

For after all, in the end, Harry, though an extremely intellectual and intuitive child, was still just that, a child, in body and at heart, a pure soul, who knew not that good and evil resided in the world simultaneously. Having only ever seen the good people and the good in people, what Harry knew about human beings could be summed up in a few pieces of parchment, for reading books could only help someone learn so much, and Harry only had the knowledge from the books to understand that what he was feeling was bad magic.

But this feeling, while an immovable wall to many, was only a deterrent to the curiosity of one Harry Potter, and thus, this seven year old, who was just looking for an adventure out of one of his books, scared and at the same time excited at the thought of mummies, monsters, sword-swinging knights, staff-wielding warlocks, fairies and dragons, forged ahead, creating a fork in the road of life, changing the fate of not only himself, but of other souls as well.

The phrase 'May you live in interesting times' would never suit another better.

-Scene Change-

Fleur Delacour was scared. No, that wasn't quite right, she was outright terrified! She wanted her Papa to come here and take her home, she wanted Maman to give her a nice warm hug and make her those delicious chocolate soufflés, she wanted grandmother to read her favourite bedtime stories to her, and tuck her into her nice, warm fluffy bed, and she wanted to cuddle Gaby, her little Teddy bear. She did NOT want to be here, anywhere would be better than here, even with her snobbish teacher Madam LaRouse and her stupid etiquette lessons!

FLASH BACK

 _Fleur remembered how it happened, at least the parts when she was awake. She had had a huge argument with her Maman and Papa a couple of days before, trying to gain permission to go to 'The Valley' with her new friend Claire. An argument she wished she had lost then and that she could have controlled her stubborn side a bit better._

 _Claire was the first real friend her age she had had in a while. After her uncontrolled bursts of magic in her non-magical school had revealed the fact that the Veela's genes inside her were dominant, quite strongly too at that, as had been seen by the burnt patch of grass around her in a three meter long radius in the playground, she had been brought home and taken leave from the school, in order to get home schooled and receive training in controlling and utilizing her Veela heritage as well as her magic. Two hours a day had also been allotted to her etiquette training, something she hated with a passion because it cut into the limited time that she had with her former school friends, few as they were. The fact that all of them were non-magical had also put a lot of distance between them and her._

 _Most of the other wizarding children that took lessons from Madam LaRouse were from pureblood families, and thus, most of them never gave her the time of day, declaring her a freak and a half-breed behind the teachers' back, sending condescending remarks her way and throwing pieces of parchment at her, trying to disturb her and then blaming her for causing disruption in the lessons. It would not have been so bad if only a few of the kids did it, but most of the boys were mean to her because she was a girl, and since she was new to the classes and thus didn't have any friends, while the girls did it because they hated that the new student was better looking than them and also was a great student. Fleur had nearly given into her temper a few times, successfully generating fireballs in her palms and readying herself to throw them on the stupid kids. But at the last moment, she had remembered her Maman's words. "_ _People will say bad things about you, but you should not let that bother you, my sweet. You are a Delacour, and we do not bow to others opinions, neither do we get dragged down to others' levels,_ _" Maman had told her one night, after she had come home in tears, mainly due to the insensitive and downright abusive words her classmates had thrown her way, and she knew that if she retaliated with her Veela-borne fire, she would be ignoring her mothers' teachings, not only that, but since the kids were Pureblood children, it would also bring trouble for her Papa._

 _Although, just last week she had thought that the fortunes had smiled upon her once again, when she had finally found her first friend in these classes, one Claire Bassinet, a girl who had blonde hair and blue eyes, just like her. She had been quite apprehensive when the new girl had come to sit with her, but once Claire had started talking, she just wouldn't stop. She was just a bundle of happiness, getting a laugh or two out of Fleur as well, a task that had seemed impossible these days even for her family. She had even asked Fleur about the looks she would get from the other children, and while Fleur had hesitated in telling her about her heritage, and only finally told her after thinking that Claire would find out anyway. She had been ready to lose her new friend ,and had been very pleasantly surprised when Claire had taken it in stride, barely even blinking an eyelash, even glaring back at a few of the others glaring in Fleur's direction. When they had talked about it later, Claire had shown no signs of getting angry or jealous of Fleur, and she had revealed privately that the Bassinet family too had Siren blood running through their veins. She did not have many of the powers of the sirens because of the dilution of blood along the generations, but Claire could breathe underwater for a very long time, had above average strength, and had a really melodious voice, on top of her good looks. Fleur had been ecstatic, having finally found a friend who was just like her, and someone who liked her for her._

 _The rest of the week had gone wonderfully in classes. She FINALLY had a friend! One she could talk girl stuff with, like the dresses and the magazines, and their pets (the Delacours and Bassinets both had cats, before they died of old age, and both families were planning on adopting another in some time), and giggle about funny stuff and stupid boys. She had even brought her friend to her house once, and it had been so fun. Her parents had been apprehensive first, after hearing about their daughter's friend having Siren's blood, beings who traditionally had been enemies of the Veela race. But Claire had won them over with her frankness, continuous talking and sweet nature, in fact, even little Gabrielle, after pouting for a total of ten seconds at the girl who had taken away her big sister, had found herself on the receiving end of one of Claire's tickle attacks, ending up squealing uncontrollably till Claire had decided to release her. They had played a lot of games and even taken the training brooms for a ride around the Delacour Estate, going faster and faster, pushing the training brooms to their limits, giggling and laughing all the while, while Gaby tried to get out of her Mamans' arms futilely and go flying with the two. Her parents had looked on, feeling quite happy that their daughter had finally found a friend, and a good one at that, who understood her._

 _Then Sunday had arrived, and Fleur had asked her parents for permission to visit Claire's place. Her parents had happily agreed, and when she had told them that they would have a mini-picnic, Maman had even offered to make them a picnic basket. But then she had mentioned that Claires' mother would also be taking them to 'Vallée Enchantée' - the complete market for all things magic, that was situated in a scenic valley of the Pyrenees mountain range- to show them around, and since it had been more than half an year since she had gone to the Valley, Fleur was very excited about this prospect, especially now that she had someone her age to do shopping and fun stuff with._

 _Her parents' reaction though, had been entirely unexpected, while she had expected them to give her instructions on how she should behave while at the valley, and had even hoped that she could get some extra galleons, other than the pocket money she had, for some desserts and clothes, her parents had taken an about turn on their previous decision and refused to let her go to the valley, let alone Claire's house._

 _Fleur had blown a gasket at this. She had tried everything, from screaming to crying to pleading to glaring, she had tried to do whatever she could think of to get her parents to permit her to go. At one point, it had even looked like they were getting conflicted over their decision, but the hopeful glint in Fleur's eyes had clued them into the fact that allowing their daughter to go to Claire's house but restricting her from going to 'Vallée Enchantée' would have been quite an impossible task. Not only was she quite a stubborn girl, but she had deviousness in spades when she needed something. And she needed this quite a lot, if the angry sparks in her hands were any indication, along with the broken pieces of furniture around the room. In the end, she had ran upstairs crying, spending the rest of the day locked in her bedroom, trying and failing to think up a way to go to Claire's._

 _During Saturday night dinner, she had tried to convince her parents, to at least allow her to go to the Bassinets' home. And after much deliberation and promises, they had at last reluctantly agreed, but only after they had said that Claire's mother would be informed of this as well, and that she would have to come back home straight from the Bassinet's place. Fleur had thought herself to be quite the little diplomat, believing that it had been her calm attitude and great speaking skills that had helped her, when in fact the reality was that her parents had seen how crushed she had looked during dinner, seeing right through her attempt at cheerfulness. While they were totally opposed to sending their daughter to the Valley due to certain events, they had talked about this earlier during the day, believing that going from one house to another via Floo network would be a safe enough method, as long as Fleur came right back, instead of going gallivanting to the 'Vallée Enchantée'. They had told her the same, that there would be no detours between the Bassinet's and the Delacours', Fleur had agreed verbally, sounding just a tiny bit too enthusiastic for their tastes, but they trusted their daughter to follow their instructions, especially after it had been made clear to her that a failure to follow instructions would result in grounding and removal of privileges._

 _The next day, Fleur had gotten up early, getting ready for a light breakfast and to go to Claire's place, having told her about getting permission via the Floo call last night. Fleur had thought up ideas all night, about how she could visit 'Vallée Enchantée' today, in a way that no one home would know and she would escape punishment. In the morning, she had finally concluded that her biggest obstacle would be convincing Mrs. Catherine Bassinet, because her parents would have surely told Claire's mother about their conditions, and she would have to cook a pretty tale or two to get her to agree for a trip to the Valley. When she sat down on the breakfast table after greeting her family a good morning, she was met with a pleasant, if quite unexpected surprise._

" _Fleur, dear, this is a letter that we have written for Mrs. Bassinet. We were unable to talk in full detail with her last night, and so, we decided to write her this letter which contains all the pertinent details, and have you deliver it to her when you get there, you can do that, right, Mon Cheri,_ _" her father had said as he had passed her a rolled-up parchment with an official Delacour seal on it, that meant that it would not open for anyone other than the person it was intended for._

 _Fleur was jubilated from the inside, now all she had to do was accidentally 'forget' to take this parchment with her, and hide it somewhere in her room, then she could easily convince Mrs. Bassinet and they could all then have a fun trip to the Valley. NO one would ever even know!_

 _Even then, her outward expressions did not match her insides, and she replied in a solemn and serious voice, "_ _Yes father,_ _" while taking the parchment from Jean-Pierre Delacour and doing happy jigs inside her head._

 _Her mother had looked at her with narrowed eyes, trying to understand what kind of scheme was cooking up in her daughter's head right now, but Fleur had learned to maintain a well enough poker face that she could fool her mother in a pinch, and thus, her plans for 'Vallée Enchantée' stood where they were in her head._

 _After a quick breakfast, Fleur couldn't get up fast enough, rushing up the stairs to her room so that she could, 'pick up her favourite games'. She reached her room, locked it, and then hid the parchment behind her wardrobe, tucked away in a little nook that would make it perfectly invisible to all of those who did not know it was there. As she was putting it away, she thought about reading it once, after all, never before had her mother and father so strongly denied her something, and she was really curious about the reason given in the piece of parchment. But just as she was about to open it, she noticed the secrecy seal that she had forgotten about. Putting it back behind the cupboard, she walked out of the room, picking up her sparkling toy wands set to play at Claires'._

' _After all, what can be the reason, I bet Papa and Maman are just being overprotective, and the letter just says that I can't go there for some stupid reason, but I am a Delacour, I can take care of myself_ _,' she thought to herself, as she skipped down the stairs, eager to head out._

 _If Fleur had not dismissed the parchment as so unimportant, and taken it with her, the results would have been quite different, for the reason described in the parchment referred to dangers and disturbing patterns, a reason that would have firmed one Catherine Bassinet's decision to make the girls stay at home, but alas, in that moment, Fleur did not deem the parchment important, and thus time moved on._

 _-Scene Change-_

' _This day is AWESOME_ _!' thought Fleur as she raced ahead of Claire, trying to dodge her and not get caught, the game of 'TAG' that they were playing, too much fun for them to stop even after playing for half an hour, especially when they had added brooms into the game._

 _Her broom went soaring through the air, enchanted to stay not more than 5 feet from the ground, being pushed to its limit of forty kilometres per hour, quite slow for a usual broom, but for two girls just having fun, this could not be more perfect._

 _After another half an hour, in which Fleur got tagged six times and managed to get Claire a total of seven times, they were called inside the house by Catherine because lunch was ready. Claire's father, Louis Bassinet, a businessman who dealt in the best of wines and had his own vineyards - with a beautiful terroir, something that she had seen when she first came here – was out to sign a business deal, while her mother Catherine was the Head of Department of Magical Transportation of the French Ministry, and was busy with some paperwork regarding her work. The girls had been promised the trip to 'Vallée Enchantée' after she would be done with the work, sometime in the afternoon. Claire also had an older sister, Ines Bassinet, who was thirteen years old and was currently studying in Beauxbatons._

 _Fleur had been apprehensive at first when she met the woman, for she was quite intimidating, may be even as much as her mother was, and her mother could be QUITE intimidating, that too with just a glance and a raised eyebrow! But thankfully the woman did not remember all the details about her conversation with Fleur's parents last night, and just knew that Fleur would be giving her a message from the parents. Instead of a literal message though, Fleur told her that her parents wanted to remind her that Fleur be kept under her watchful eyes all the time, and that she return Fleur before dinner time._

' _A little twist to fathers' message, I hope he doesn't mind_ _,' she thought mischievously and winked at Claire standing next to Catherine, who was in on her plan and was clearly trying not to laugh._

 _Catherine nodded her head at that, looking sideways at her daughter's shaking frame, "_ _And what is it that you find so funny, Claire dear. These rules also apply to you, both of you_ _," her eyes went from Claire to Fleur, "_ _I don't want either of you to get out of my sight even for a minute, you understand_ _," she said in a stern tone, pointing her finger from Fleur to Claire. Both of them nodding vigorously at that, happy that their plan had worked ._

" _Now Fleur, as far as I understand, your parents were pretty hesitant about you going to 'The Valley' last night, but now that they have given their permission, it does not mean that you can ignore their instructions_ _, " she said to Fleur, who nodded vigorously, trying not to poke her tongue out to Claire, who was imitating Catherine's expressions and mannerisms from behind her. _

" _Yes Mrs. Bassinet_ _, " she dutifully replied, inner Fleur dancing in her mind at her plan executing so flawlessly. _

" _Now dear, none of this formality, my name is Catherine, and you will call me that, you understand_ _, " she said with a smile, her stern expression disappearing instantly as the serious conversation became over, patting the seven year olds' head as she and her daughter showed Fleur around the house._

 _The day had gone perfectly after that, they had played a lot, finding new things to do, and reading a few fun books, and all this while Fleur had drawn a lot of similarities between her mother Apolline and Catherine Bassinet, their sternness and softness, the no-nonsense attitude, the love and care they showed to their children (and apparently those children's friends, for just like Claire had been treated at the Delacours', so too was Fleur at the Bassinets) the prowess they had over magic, as seen when Catherine had prepared the 'Kouign-amann', one of the most filling and tasty cakes Fleur had ever eaten, and she had made it with just her wand, while sitting in the kitchen table, and reading a book in between the baking process. The house elves had prepared the rest of the food, and while all of it was quite delicious, the cake took the cake, so to say, as it was even comparable in taste to her mother's cooking._

 _After lunch, all of them had made preparations to visit 'The Valley', and taking the Floo powder, Fleur entered the Floo first, throwing it down to the ground, calling for 'la licorne caracoler' or 'the Prancing Unicorn', their own version of Britain's 'Leaky Cauldron', although it compared quite favourably with the Pub in Diagon Alley, not smelling of booze and sweat, for one thing._

 _They all entered through the gateway to the Valley, a magnificent construction that maintained the illusion of there being a green valley, when seen by non-magicals, even from the sky, and Fleur proceeded, sure that this trip of hers would prove to be a lot more exciting than her previous ones had been._

 _-Scene Change-_

 _Apolline Delacour was starting to worry, the sun had started to set and it was already well into the evening, and Fleur still wasn't back home yet. She knew that these kind of things happened with kids, and that they could forget about the time when they were playing and having fun, but she just could not shake the feeling of uneasiness and foreboding that she was getting inside. Even little Gabrielle had started to make a fuss by now, although whether that was because of the same reason as her or because Fleur had not taken Gaby with her, she was still unsure about. As Apolline Delacour made her way up the stairs, so that she could tidy up Fleur's room and put all the things back into their places, she remembered the reason for this feeling, for it was also the reason why Fleur had been forbidden from going to 'The Valley' as well._

 _Flashback Within a Flashback_

 _Jean-Pierre Delacour was at a very high position in the French magical government, and also had quite a few ties in even the mundane government, and what he had heard from his sources, and later learnt officially in the meetings, was that something sinister was going on. Within the last twelve days, a total of five magicals had gotten kidnapped from different European countries. While this could well have been a coincidence, the fact was that all of the magicals who had been kidnapped were children, and all of them girls at that. The situation smelt of grave unease when it was also found out that all the kidnappings had taken place in public places, a few of them in the magical markets near the country and one of the girls had been kidnapped when she was waiting at the magical bus station with her parents for the bus to come and take her to school. Not only this, but all the families and individuals had been attacked in broad daylight, the kidnappers having come out of nowhere, with hoods over their faces and the Grim Reaper figure made on the backs of their black cloaks._

 _It had been quite evident that the criminals did not care about the attention they got, for the fight for the girls had been vicious at times, the protective parents and in a few instances, on duty aurors doing everything they could to stop the kidnappings. All of this had been for naught though, because the 'Reapers' seemed to be extremely skilled and ruthless, and all these scuffles had resulted in successful kidnappings, and five people, including three aurors, and two innocent bystanders had died as a result. The kidnappings had been spread all over the Continent as well, with one happening in each of Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece and Germany. While all of this would have made big news in the newspapers, it had all been kept hush-hush, because of the fact that these kinds of public attacks would spread panic among the masses, for if the people were not safe in broad daylight, what hope would anyone have in the dark,on top of that, the news of the deaths of aurors would have scared the public even more._

 _But the biggest reason for all the secrecy was the nature of the girls who were kidnapped, because none of them were human, or at least fully human. One of them had vampire blood in her, but she was only a half vampire with all the advantages a vampire had and none of their weaknesses, another was the child of a werewolf and a wizard, having the traits of a werewolf, with the enhanced senses, enhanced smell, increased strength, the works but she did not transform on the full moon, a girl from Germany had descended from Nymphs, specifically Wood Nymphs, and tended to develop a connection with forests everywhere she went, along with the creatures dwelling there, a fourth was a quarter giant, or so it was said, a fact evident from her body-size, impossibly large for a girl of thirteen and the hobbies she was said to have, including bench pressing boulders, and roughhousing with centaur and troll children. The fifth was another half-breed, but this one was also minor goblin royalty, a fact that had the entire race slightly more cordial and co-operative with the wizards in searching for her, although the royal part was unknown to most._

 _What was the common denominator was that all of these girls had been found to be very powerful and showed most if not all the favourable traits of their respective races, and it had been speculated by many experts, that whatever kind of individuals were these 'Reapers', it was very likely that they were involved in some banned and forgotten rituals, rituals that would in all likelihood demand the sacrifices of innocent and 'pure' girls. Most of the purebloods could not bring themselves to think about who they thought of as 'freaks' and 'half breeds', but even they knew the power of rituals, and not paying heed to such an issue could quickly turn disastrous. The fact that this theory, while merely speculation, had not been thrown aside, was in itself worrying enough ,not to mention the fact that many people had realized that this could well be the reality of the situation. One other disturbing realization that had happened was that the Full Moon was quite near, and considering the nature of the ritual, it would be taking place somewhere on the continent on the Full Moon night._

 _That is why, Jean and Apolline had decided to not let their daughter go into the 'Vallée Enchantée', fearing that her being a veela-child, with quite powerful veela traits, and with her friend having siren blood herself, would make them too enticing a target, especially, considering that 'The Reapers' most likely needed two more sacrifices to complete the powerful magical number of seven, a number that would substantially power up any magic involving it. This fact had been discussed in the meeting of the European Magical Union, and a request for assistance had also been made to the International Confederation of Wizards, but the assistance that the ICW could provide in an official capacity was limited due to the constraint of time, so, all of the European countries, other than Britain, had agreed to help with the search, lending their forces to form search parties all over the continent._

 _The British Magical Minister Cornelius Fudge had refused, stating that this matter did not involve the British Magical Community in the least, and giving the superfluous reason that their peacekeeping forces, the aurors, had not yet recovered from the Civil War against He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named , one that had happened just three years ago. The excuse, while flimsy, had worked, the other countries not wanting to waste time with someone whom they knew to have prejudice against anyone other than purebloods and halfbloods. Fudge while not the most astute of individuals, had enough common sense and political acumen not to blurt out what his real opinion was for the half-breeds and the non-humans, while the lack of compunction his secretary, one Dolores Umbridge had when speaking of those 'freaks' and 'half-breed sluts' had clued most people not in the know about Britain's opinion regarding this matter. There was also the fact that Albus Dumbledore, a British wizard and a famous, feared and respected personality in the wizarding communities world over, was the Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, and they did not want to anger someone with that kind of power and influence, by calling Britain out on its stance._

 _End of Flashback Within a Flashback_

 _That had happened two days ago, Apolline being among the few of the general populace of the country in the know about the situation, thanks to her husband's position. She had wished that those girls would return to their homes, unharmed, a wish that seemed to be made in futility, considering the fact that the continent-wide hunt for 'Reapers' had been going on for more than two days, with no viable results to show for it. Everybody had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, with the Full Moon being just a single, solitary day away. The fact that if their theories were right, then it was extremely likely that attempts would be made to kidnap two more girls as well was something that was keeping people up all night in the governments .Keeping this in mind, the security in various places, especially all the magical markets of the countries and the well-frequented magical places, had been tightened, with aurors patrolling during all times._

 _Apolline had therefore been quite stern in her reply when Fleur had wanted to go to the 'Vallée Enchantée' with her friend, for she wanted the next two days to pass in peace for her family. She of course felt quite a bit guilty for being thankful that it was someone else's daughter and not hers who had been kidnapped, and it broke her heart on seeing her daughter so sad about the 'no visit rule'. Alas, Fleur's safety came first, and thus, after ample discussion with Jean, they had decided to send a letter to Mrs. Catherine Bassinet, describing the ongoing situation in brief, so that the children would not be able to persuade her into going to The Valley._

 _They had decided to send the letter through Fleur, to go with the Floo call they had made last night, unknowing of the fact that their conversation with Mrs. Bassinet had been unclear, and also underestimating Fleur's stubborn side, thinking that she would obey their orders, a fact that was going to come and bite them in the posterior, as Apolline would find out for herself soon enough._

 _Lost in her thoughts, Apolline realized that she had reached Fleur's room, entering it ,she brought out her wand, 10 and a half inches of Alder wood with a Veela -specifically her great-grandmothers' - hair, at its core, swishing and flicking with ease borne off years of practice, to put everything back in its place, all without uttering a single word. She then proceeded to walk around the room, casting cleaning charms and vanishing spells to clean it of all the dirt hidden in the corners, when her eyes fell upon a particular space behind Fleur's cupboard. Something was hidden here, and whatever it was, was hidden so well that she would not have found it if there wasn't some dust on the floor near it. She decided to see what was hidden behind, thinking that Fleur may have hidden something embarrassing that she would find amusing, however, as the object came out, the Floo in the house flared, her husband running out of it while shouting for her, and her face went white when she recognized the parchment as the letter they had written for Catherine Bassinet._

' _Oh mon Dieu_ _!' she thought as reality came crashing down around her._

 _-Scene Change-_

 _1 Hour ago_

 _Fleur had had the most wonderful day in a long-long time and it had been just SO MUCH fun! The short Floo trip to 'The Valley' had been uneventful but the rest of the day was anything but. They had instantly gone for the ice-cream shop situated near the Valley entrance, Catherine paying for ice-cream for all three of them, just a raised eyebrow from her silencing Fleur's silent protest that she would pay for her own. A Mud Pie double scoop was what Fleur ordered, Claire taking a double scoop of Raspberry Ripple for herself, while Catherine took a single one of Tutti Frutti and sat down, looking around the Valley and noting the increased presence of Law Enforcement, thinking that it may have something to do with the reason the Delacours were hesitant to send Fleur to 'La Vallée' after all. She did not put much mind to it, for if the aurors were here, then there would be no problem for anyone._

 _The presence of aurors significantly increased the safety of 'La Vallée', for it was the general opinion that this valley was not at all as defenceless and unsafe as any other magical market would be._

 _The construction of the 'Vallée Enchantée' had been done in the mid 15_ _th_ _century, 50 years after Lisette de Lapin, the mad witch was accused of practising witchcraft on muggles in 1422 in Paris. Her subsequent disappearance had increased the ongoing tensions and almost instigated a war between the magical and non-magical community, and only the fact that Charles VI the Mad King had died that year, and it had taken his successor far too many years to recapture most of France, had prevented the outbreak of war. It had taken Charles VII the Victorious about 30 years to establish peace in France, and by 1453, things had stabilized enough that the King was in talks with the representative of the French magical Community, one Nicholas Flamel, for the recreation of a magical establishment for the witches and wizards, after the destruction of the 'marché magique', the only thing Charles VI had been able to destroy before his death._

 _The talks had gone on for years, plans had been constructed, and a place had been chosen, all of this happening while Charles VII handed over the reins to his son, Louis XI, the Universal Spider, known for his cunning and shrewdness. Louis XI was Cunning, but he also had a son who was magical, and thus he wanted to establish something that could not be destroyed as easily if one of his enemies, or even successors ever became as mad as his ancestor Charles VI, and a war broke out involving the magicals. Thus he sat down with his own council of wizards, Nicholas Flamel the primary presence among them, and they together put their minds to making 'Vallée Enchantée' one of the most secure and impenetrable places in the world._

 _The end result had blown all expectations out of the window, for the 'Vallée Enchantée' was secure against anything less than an army marching down its gates, with barriers surrounding the Valley on all sides spread out over a two kilometre radius, and all kinds of teleportation proven to be impossible into and out of the valley, unless from specific designated points assigned for that exact purpose. The Valley was also unplottable and its location indiscernible, even when seen from the skies, thus nobody, other than those involved in its construction, knew where it was exactly, and then too, all of the workers involved in the process had had their memories wiped out of its location, as stated in a contract they had signed in the beginning._

 _One flaw that had certainly been overlooked was any implementation of magic to stop or restrict the casting of malicious and foul magicks, such as the Unforgivables. There was also the fact that while The Valley was quite safe from attacks because of its Unplottability, the barriers were not impenetrable, just the fact that they had never been tested made them appear as such._

 _The result was that, while the Valley appeared to be totally safe, at least from an outsiders' perspective, and was actually quite safe, this illusion of indestructibility of wards and magical barriers was what had kept outside influences from ever breaching The Valley, but for someone who could attain unrestricted access to the original plans of the construction, entering the 'Vallée Enchantée' would be a piece of cake, especially if that someone was a skilled wizard._

 _And that is exactly what happened at this moment, as the three members of the organization 'Grim Reapers', referred to by their codenames of Chimera, Demon and Dugbog, made their way silently into the Valley. The breaching of the wards had been a somewhat simple course of action for someone as well-versed in wards as Dugbog was. Demon, the person with the most intimidating presence of the three, and the one in charge, proceeded forward, from the sides of a shop that sold Quills and Parchments, passing a message through legillimency to the individual known as Chimera, who was just about to open his mouth to ask something, but upon receiving the message, shut it closed just as quick. The three made their way into the Alley, honing in on the trio of non-human magical signatures, avoiding the crowds with inhuman grace, moving in the direction in which they would find the 'Veela-girl' and the 'Siren-girl' as they had been informed by the Seer in their organization._

 _The three had been given a date and time, and the original number of people designed for this task, a total of two, had been increased to three, after the organization had found out that the Valley had increased its security, increasing the number of aurors as compared to their previous targets. Demon, one of the best fighters among them, said to be on par with their 'Leader' had been assigned to be part of the team, along with Chimera and Dugbog, in order to crush any sort of resistance that would be found around their targets, for the Full Moon was just a single day away, and they had been waiting for these two 'parts' of their ritual for a week, making plans that would ensure the successful kidnapping of both individuals, thus ensuring that the mission would succeed._

 _The journey to reach their targets was uneventful for the most part, mostly because of the fact that 'The Reapers', for the first time, had decided to not declare their presence openly and had arrived in inconspicuous clothes, the regular robes coloured red, black and green, respectively, succeeding in not drawing anything more than an odd glance from passersby, although that was more due to their unrestrained aura and radiating magic, as well as their military-like precision while walking. They radiated so much raw magic that everybody almost unconsciously moved away from their path, trying to get out of the way of this potential danger._

 _If anybody had walked closely enough, not that anyone actually did, they would have heard the figure walking in the middle, codenamed Chimera, muttering under his breath about 'explosions and fights and how he was not into stealth'. Anybody who knew this person would find it odd to see him sulk, and his two partners definitely did, but Demon barely paid him any glance, while Dugbog kept his eyes straight, nervous for his first mission, and resolute in completing it. This sulking was a result of an earlier meeting that had taken place in their headquarters, where the particulars of this mission had been discussed. Chimera had been vocally against the fact that they would be doing this mission without wearing the full uniform and going all out from the beginning and violently taking down any protection that surrounded the girls. For someone who revelled in all the torture he could inflict on people, especially when the people fought back, it was anathema to him that he might not get to fight at all, but, in the end, he had been silenced by their Leader, who wanted the penultimate part of their plan to go off without a hitch, for the ritual depended on the presence of those two girls, and thus their successful retrieval was vital._

 _And thus they proceeded, avoiding the magical police through the simple flaw in the law enforcements' plan that 'The Reapers' would be arriving in full regalia. This critical error, which meant that the French aurors were comparatively a bit more lax upon noticing an absence of black cloaks with the Grim Reaper on the backs, meant that when the three 'Reapers' reached their target, they went unnoticed until the first volley of spells were fired. Then too, it was the trigger-happy Chimera who opened the spellfire, and began the skirmish._

 _After that, it was pure chaos. One of the aurors had been blindsided by the first spell, a Dark and more powerful variant of a Cutting spell, one which cut through his arm, almost severing it in two, and stopped near his waist region, the protection cast upon his robes being the only thing stopping the spell from cutting open his stomach as well. As he went down with a cry of pain, his partner got alerted to the presence of hostiles, and fired a red spell into the sky, in order to attract the attention of the rest of the aurors spread out across 'The Valley'._

 _The sight of the deadly spell and the subsequent fall of an auror (and most likely his death, her mind supplied unhelpfully), froze Catherine for a moment, before she pulled the two girls behind her, wand out of its holster and into her hand, and a shield charm on her lips. A shimmering blue shield appeared in front of her, a moment before a sizzling yellow coloured spell crashed into it, the shield barely holding still as the spell powered it down. She barely had time to shout out another shield spell when an ugly green spell came from her right, this one powerful enough to pierce her shield and make a big gash on her wand hand. She held onto her wand, if only because losing it right now would mean instant death for her and the children, even as agonizing pain shot through her, but even through the pain, she was aware enough to push the two girls in the opposite direction from the incoming spells._

 _That was why she did not notice a trio of spells coming one-after-the- another, with speed and precision that would make the best hitwizards in the world green with envy, and would have likely sustained a fatal injury if not for the auror support reaching her just in time and a multitude of shields flaring up around her, holding up to the three spells. Catherine was pushed behind, while the aurors came forward, firing the stunners, body-binds and other restraining spells as fast as they were able to, all the while doing their best to help the civilians retreat far away from the chaos._

 _Any other day, this tactic would have worked, for while the Reapers' forward pace would have been steady, their progress would not have been fast enough to reach the two girls before the arrival of backup, and the attackers would have had to retreat without completing their mission. But on this day, the Leader of the Reapers had decided that the completion of the mission was paramount, and thus, Demon had been in-charge of the extraction of their targets. And one thing that Demon was good at, was completing his missions._

 _Just when it looked like the Aurors were gaining the upper hand, and that the nearest civilians (the girls and Catherine) were at least a couple hundred yards away, the tempo of the battle changed. The climate became oppressive, because the third person of the trio, the one who had been standing behind the other two, and who hadn't sent a single spell till now, The Demon, entered the fray. That's what witnesses would later describe him as, an unnatural being, a monster, a DEMON, for he moved too fast for them to hit, he cast too quickly for them to dodge, and all the time, his hood was down, obscuring his face, only an almost visible aura surrounding this person. Spells were tossed aside with an impossible ease, and even when the aurors started using some of the more dangerous spells, the ribbon cutter, bludgeoner, blasting, driller, and other spells meant to decapacitate and possibly end this carnage, they were all treated like mere children. A fiery whip erupted from the hand of the demon, cleaving an auror almost in half, while two others had their wand hands severed so completely that the heat from the whip cauterized their wounds._

 _When an auror had tried to sneak up on the Demon, a twitch of the wrist, and a steel gate from a nearby toy shop had careened in the ambusher's direction, sending her to fates unknown._

 _All this barely took half a minute, and by the end of it, the dozen or so aurors on the scene were either injured, dead, or in a few cases, physically intact but far too terrified to retaliate with anything substantial. Backup was arriving, from other parts of the Valley as well as the Ministry's law enforcement, but it would take time, and no one was sure if even 10 or 20 more wizards would make any difference against the monster standing in front of them._

 _A wounded Catherine, who had reached the two girls by now, was unaware of the fact that the feeling of safety the aurors had generated within her was about to dissipate and die a fiery death, and it was only the screams of her daughter and her daughters' friend that saved her life from the whip of raging fire that passed her eyesight, even her hasty dodge wasn't enough to escape unscathed, as the whip burned through her right shoulder, before retreating back to its source. It was only then that she looked behind, the pain in her shoulder barely registering due to the earlier injury to her hand and the adrenaline coursing through her veins. The sight was grizzly, and she barely held onto her lunch, the bile rising in her throat upon seeing at least six people lying on the ground, three of them aurors, and none of them showing any signs of movements, their silence indicative of their likely deaths, as much as their injuries were. There were ripped signs from shops, a few knick-knacks from various shoppers strewn about, the streets were red with blood at certain spots, and amid the eerie silence, the remaining aurors were looking at three people standing in the middle with absolute terror in their eyes. There was defiance and anger present as well, but only in miniscule amounts and these feelings were suppressed further when the wand of an auror pointed shakily in the direction of the trio lit up in flames, along with the entire arm of the auror. This fiery action had taken place without any of the Reapers so much as twitching in the direction of the auror. Instead the three hooded figures were facing her, and more worryingly, looking past her at the two little ones, and despite the hoods obscuring most of their faces and overall expressions, she could clearly see their mouths as one of them licked his lips eagerly, a smirk on his lips, while the other two didn't show any facial movement, even though all three moved forward, gliding across the path, their movements unnatural and two fast for them to be walking._

 _The firing from the Aurors had dwindled down to practically nothing, only a few half-hearted curses that barely dented the nigh invisible shield around the three figures. Catherine watched, as if in a daze, as the monsters glided across half the distance in mere moments, getting nearer and nearer…_

" _Mother/Catherine! We have to go_ _," the two seven-year olds tugged on her robes, their voices pleading and full of terror, the fear in them permeating through the air, and somehow breaking Catherine out of her frozen state. By the time she realized that she was not yet dead (although her injury could very well change that, if it was not tended to urgently, her mind supplied unhelpfully)and that no more spells were being fired in their direction, the Reapers had covered 3/4_ _th_ _of the distance, and were getting within arms' reach._

 _She started firing again, only the adrenaline powering her through the pain, dizziness and blood loss of her wand hand's injury, one which was being barely held close by an emergency healing spell. Although the fact that her spells were merely bouncing off the shields did show her that she was losing her strength. The only thing consoling her right now was that no return spells were being fired in her direction. By the time she reached the conclusion that these people, whoever they were, needed her daughter (and possibly Fleur) alive for something really, Really Bad, they were upon her, the man in the front twisting her wand hand and making her cry out in anguish._

" _Hmm, not bad, not bad at all_ _," the voice_ hissed _at her, for there was no other way to describe the feeling of anticipation and hunger leaking from the words coming out of hooded man's mouth. Catherine tried to free her hand, hoping against hope that her enhanced strength would be enough to pull her hand free, but the creature in front of her just tightened its' grip, and then it_ laughed _. It was a cruel laugh, and Catherine knew that if she was alive after tonight, the laugh would haunt her nights for a long, long time._

" _Quite_ _a feisty one, aren't you, and very strong as well, casting spells with a torn hand_ _," it said, licking its lips with a smirk, the only part of the hooded figure visible, even from up close, as it looked at her hand, which she noticed, was starting to bleed again, before its' eyes raked over her body, mouth twisting into an even more crueller smirk. She knew she should have felt fear at the moment, her children (and yes, even after only a day with her, she considered Fleur one of hers') in danger from these monsters, she herself in danger from this creature, bleeding severely, helpless, with no sign of help, but all she felt at the moment was Rage._

" _Ach-tooey!" she spat in its face, the blood from her mouth going into the hood, and scattering on its face, out of sight. Its' only response was to hold her wrist even tighter, forcing her to whimper as tendons were crushed and nerves burned from the magic pushing against her wrist._

" _I will enjoy breaking you_ _," it said, the sound almost a growl, and her rage having dimmed somewhat due to the unbearable pain, she could only pray and hope for a miracle to come and save her children._

" _Chimera, we are going," the voice came from behind the figure, from the one who had seared her shoulder with a flame whip. This one was tall, tallest of the three, and his voice came as a command, one that the creature in front of her (a Chimera, a fitting name for a monster) obeyed, releasing her an instant later, the push strong enough to send her to the ground, aggravating her injuries. Claire and Fleur rushed to her side, their own fears forgotten for a moment, but before they reached her, Chimera snapped forward, arms snatching the two children from nowhere, and carrying their struggling ,kicking ,crying ,screaming forms away from her._

 _She tried to get up, but the burning pain, from her shoulder, along with her mangled, bleeding hand, was enough to send her back to the ground again. The sounds of screaming started becoming distant, the cries of the two, for her, for help, becoming fainter, due to the increasing distance, due to her fading consciousness, maybe due to both .Then what she heard brought a new sense of rage in her._

" _Hmm, not the mother, but you two will make do for now, it will certainly be enjoyable for me, " Chimera's lecherous and sick voice reached her, giving her enough strength to get up once more. _

" _Aaaaaaaahhhhh!," the windows of nearby shops shattered, a lot of debris was launched into the air, as a wave of pure magic came out of her, rushing to the unwary Chimera, and stopping only just short as a glimmering gold shield flared just behind him, the tallest figure with his wand out and controlling the shield that stopped the magic wave._

 _Chimera turned, banging the heads of the two girls together, sending them to unconsciousness, and handing them to the third, the smallest figure, and advancing towards her, wand in hand and growling, "Crucio!"._

END FLASHBACK

Catherine's face, contorted in agony, was the last thing she saw before the head injury sent her to dreamland.

At first, when she woke up, she thought that it was all a bad dream, and that she would be back home, in her bed, with little Gaby trying to enter her room silently, in order to wake her up by jumping up on the bed.

But the first thing she registered was the coldness of metal, thick manacles wrapped around her pale wrists, which were now red from the pressure of the restraints and had bruises from when she remembered the man handling her and Claire roughly. ' _Claire_ ,' she thought, forgetting her own condition and looking around frantically, for any sign of her best friend.

That's when she noticed, that not just her wrists, but her legs had been bound in chains as well, and these chains were attached to the wall behind her. The room she was in, was dark, even darker than her house at night, and as far she could see, there was only a single source of light in the entire place, a small, circular slit on the left corner of the ceiling in front of her, and the miniscule light that came in, only gave the room even more of a scary feeling. There was no sign of Claire, or anyone else, and only when she squinted could she see, that a half dozen feet away from her, was a door made of iron rods, the gap between the rods barely enough for her to pass one of her hands.

Fleur stayed frozen for what felt like an hour, but were in reality merely a few minutes, shaking and trembling at the thought of what had happened. She remembered her mother telling her about what strangers did to girls, and especially Veela girls, and while she did not understand a lot of that conversation, she remembered enough to understand it wasn't anything good. The last thing she saw was also weighing heavily on her mind, _'_ _Is Catherine OK? Did they take her to the healers? Do Maman and Papa know that we got kidnapped?_ _'_ The last thought made her feel guilty, thinking that maybe, just maybe, if she had given Catherine the letter, she would not be here right now. She did not even know where 'here' was, nor where Claire was.

She tried shouting for her friend at first, but her voice barely came out in a hoarse whisper. She tried getting up next, thinking maybe that if she could look out the door, maybe she could find something. But the chains, were tight, they had enough give to not hurt when she was sitting as she was, but if she moved even a few feet away, they started to pull and hurt her wrists. Already smarting, the wrists hurt enough for the seven year old to discontinue her efforts in reaching for the door. Finally, after trying and failing to get her wrists out of the manacles (her mind calmly supplied that the manacles must be enchanted, to fit her size, and probably magic inhibiting as well, just like she had heard a few times when Papa told Maman about arresting the bad guys in magic-inhibiting cuffs), when she tried to call upon her inherent Veela fire, failing to even so much as heat her hand up, her panic increased.

"What am I going to do, what am I going to do?" she whispered, not realising for a while that she could speak properly again, or as proper as a seven-year old kidnapped and scared seven year old could.

As soon as she did though, the first sounds out of her mouth were, "Claire! Claire! Can you hear me? Claire!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, the sound echoing through the walls of the room, and breaking through the eerie silence.

There was no response for several moments, and Fleur had almost given up hope for any, when a reply came through the metallic entryway.

"F-Fleur, is ...is that you?!" Claire's voice felt shaky and breathy, as if she was crying and trying to speak at the same time. Fleur felt her heart go out for her friend. Here, she was, crying about her own situation, while the last thing her best friend saw and heard was her mother in pain, screaming, and now, trapped here, she was not sure, if her mother was alright, not even sure if she was ali…

Fleur tried to think how she would behave if something like this had happened to her mother. Her throat tightened and tears appeared anew. Fleur was sure that she was going to start crying again, if not for her friends' voice reaching her once more.

"Fleur…(hic), are you there…?" she sounded even worse than she did a minute ago, and Fleur only belatedly realized that she had yet to give a reply.

"I am here Claire, are you Ok?" just as she said it though, even the seven-year old Veela understood that her friend was very likely NOT Ok, if she remembered her last conscious moments in as vivid and horrifying clarity as Fleur did.

"I-I am OK, how are y-you (hic)?" her voice, while still weak and impossibly sad for the ever cheerful Claire, sounded better already, having found that her best friend was with her, and that at the moment, both of them were alright.

"Where do you think we a-are, and why did they t-take us?" Claire said again, asking the question as much to Fleur as she did to herself. Now that Fleur had found out that Claire was with her (or at least she was near her, most likely tied up in another room), she couldn't help but think herself, 'Why did they take us? What do they need us for? Who are they? What…? When…?Why…?' The questions kept coming, but there were no answers.

"I don't know, Claire," she replied, hoping that her voice was not as shaky and scared as she herself felt right now.

"Do you think mother…" whatever she wanted to say, and Fleur had a fair idea what it was, she could not complete, trailing off, as various sounds reached their ears, sounds like something was being dragged on the floor, muffled sounds of something, and then a loud voice, "Is this all of them?" the reply was even gruffer, "Yes."

Fleur had no time to process what had been said, before she heard more sounds of dragging, even more sounds, of metal scrapping, and then, a figure was at her door. The light was barely enough to make out his features, and it was a HE, for Fleur could see a beard and an angular face, a short-crop of hair, and his lips stretched in a smirk that she could not define as anything other than Evil, even though she had next to no experience with evil before today. He opened the door slowly, and the grin and his slow methodical steps, that she could only liken to a predator such as a nundu or a chimera, only served to terrify her more, as she tried to crawl backward, in the vain hope of going inside the wall, and away from That.

"Is the little birdie scared, oh poor birdie, don't be scared, I am not going to hurt you," relishing in the look of utter terror on the Veela girls' face, the man added, "at least not yet."

After saying that, he reached forward, and Fleur was frozen with fear, hoping someone, anyone would come in and stop him. And while no one came, the man also did not touch her, instead, tapping at a random point on the wall behind her, or at least it seemed random before the chains buried in the wall came out smoothly landing near her feet. Fleur could only stare at it for a few seconds, bewildered that getting out of the chains was this easy, and hopeful that maybe, just maybe, the man actually wanted to release her.

Alas, it was a fools' hope, as demonstrated by his next words. "Now, now, don't go getting any ideas, little birdie, the magic of the chains is keyed to my blood," at her rapidly paling look, his smirk grew wider, "yes, blood magic, have your parents told you about blood magic," when he stayed silent for a few seconds, waiting for her answer, Fleur nodded her head slowly, with a gulp.

Yes, she knew what blood magic was, her father had explained to her in the simplest of terms, that blood magic was Powerful. It was not good, and it was not bad, but it was one of the strongest magicks, and at her age, or any age actually, interfering with and trying to counter blood magic never did anyone any good. Fleur still did not understand everything that had been said, but her father had repeatedly said, that any interaction with blood magic and rituals she could have would be years into the future, under the guidance of himself and/or other experts, and that she shouldn't think about even attempting such a foolish endeavor at this age.

"So you understand that if you even attempt to struggle in any manner, the results will not be good, for you," the smirk did not lighten in any manner, if anything, the man seemed even more amused and happy as Fleur became more scared.

She stayed silent after that, complying when the man ordered her to stand up, picking up her chain and pulling her forward, as if she were an animal on a leash. Fleur's mind was occupied with dark thoughts during this short journey, wondering if she would ever see her parents, if she would ever see her Grandmother, and little Gaby, and whether she would be able to ever go to Beauxbatons. She hardly noticed the sounds, muffled and otherwise, coming from nearby, some of which sounded like Claire. Only when she was pushed down to the ground once again, the chains going into another wall behind her, did she notice that she was in another room, this one quite a bit bigger than the previous one, and that she was not alone either. There was light enough in this room, courtesy of multiple fire lamps present at equal intervals, to see that six more girls were present in the room, and the closest to her, was Claire.

"Fleur!" Claire noticed her first, clinging to her in a hug fiercer and more desperate than she had ever experienced. And Gaby's hugs were no laughing matter. The contact though, was enough to bring tears to Fleur's eyes. The wetness on her shoulder told her that she wasn't the only one crying. Wanting to console Claire, as well as herself, but not wanting to part, Fleur clung on to the hug, rubbing Claire's back and saying soothing words like, "Everything is going to be alright," "your mother is going to be fine," "We are going to be fine," she wasn't sure if the words were more for Claire's benefit or her own, but they were certainly helping the both of them.

The moment of happiness was only fleeting though, because the men in black cloaks with a scary symbol on their backs were still present in the room, and it was their voice that brought Fleur's attention back to the present.

"How touching, a reunion between friends, oh it almost brings tears to my eyes," the tone of voice was totally opposite of the words spoken, although it took Fleur a few moments to understand them, since he had spoken them in English. Fleur knew this voice, and with trepidation, leaned out of the hug, noticing just now that the other six girls, most likely prisoners were watching the scene with equal parts longing and fear, she did not understand the longing, but whenever their eyes darted to the other men present the fear was plainly visible.

The man that had entered her cell just a few minutes ago, was looking at them, smiling a smile with a little too much teeth and one which didn't quite reach the eyes. Only a dark glint of amusement was visible in those eyes of green colour. They were a dark green, and if Fleur had ever seen the Killing Curse in her life, she would describe them as 'Avada Kedavra Green.'

"Enjoy it while you can, little bird," he said, and then turning to the other girls, said something, in other languages, Fleur didn't understand a whole lot of it, the only language that she even had a basic grasp of, other than French, was English. Only from hearing her Papa talking with officials in his office, did she recognize that the man was speaking Italian, Bulgarian and a few other languages. Whatever he said, must have been scary, for the other six girls, one of whom was almost as tall as the guy, and even buffer than him, shrunk away from his voice, trying to bury themselves into the walls, just as Fleur had tried to do, not even a few minutes ago. The two other men, standing behind this one person, still had their faces covered in hoods, and by being even taller than the speaker, seemed to add an even bigger intimidation factor to the equation.

The man, apparently satisfied after scaring the five girls, turned towards the duo, staring at them for a few seconds, until they turned their fearful gazes down, and a satisfied smirk came on his face.

The three started to make their way out of the room, and just at the entrance door, the man turned once again, winking at Fleur and saying, "enjoy your last day birdie, if you are still here after tomorrow, we will have a Lot of fun." Even Claire, who was half incoherent and the other girls, most of whom could not understand a word of French, shuddered, and Claire clutched Fleur even more, while Fleur just hoped, that this nightmare would end.

-Scene Change-

It had been less than a day since Fleur had been kidnapped, although the only indication of time was the three meals that she and the other kidnapped girls had been given. Fleur did not know much about kidnapping, but she knew that giving three meals - and while she did not have an appetite for the food, upon eating it, she found out that the food was edible, not really good, but not disgusting either – in less than a day was quite generous. Apparently, she wasn't the only one to think so, and a pale-faced girl - with blood red eyes that were too sharp to be natural, unnaturally long canines, a face that Fleur knew would be described as pretty, just like her, although it was quite apparent that this girl was quite a few years older than her, and she had _boobs_ , the one thing that Fleur did not have, - had asked the question, when the gates had been opened and a house elf had levitated plates of food into the room, while their tormentor had stood at the door. The man had laughed at that, started to say something, before stopping and moving his wand in a blurry motion.

She understood what he did, for when he opened his mouth, she along with everyone else, understood him, as if he were speaking perfect French. "This is your last day my lovely girls, in a few hours, you will be part of the most wondrous of rituals, playing your part in the reawakening of our lord. All of you will meet noble ends, fulfilling your purpose in this world, and if any survive, our lord will most generously award you, and then us, as his most loyal followers." The man looked away into the distance, smiling a smile of utter devotion, as if being a part of the ritual to awaken his lord was the greatest thing that Fleur could ever do. And while Fleur did not understand everything he said, blood magic, rituals, and meeting the noblest end did not sound like something Fleur wanted to be a part of.

Unheeding of the looks of terror coming on the faces of the girls, or perhaps revelling in it, he continued, "that is why, I advice you not to try and get out of your bindings. The ritual will be very...magically draining, you see. For under-aged witches, to use more magic than they have, magical exhaustion will be the….least of your issues. We will also refrain from casting any magic on you, so don't force us into such a situation. Also, even if you do manage to get out of the room, there are alert wards around the place, keyed to alerting Leader if any underage magical go out of them, and if you get caught by the leader," the man laughed at that, as if what this Leader would do to them would be very amusing to this man.

With that, leaving more than a half-dozen girls of varying ages and species with their morbid thoughts, the man casually strolled out of the room, indicating with a finger for the house elf to do the same.

The door closed behind, and all Fleur could hope for now, was a miracle. She did not believe in God, not really, the Delacours never having been an especially religious family. But at the moment, as she looked around, at the despondent faces, at the scared whispers, at the dark corners, and at the flickering fire, she joined hands with the other girls, the single day of being locked together and facing certain doom having brought them together, despite the differing ages, mentalities and languages, or perhaps in spite of it, as all of them prayed, for their parents, for their guardians, for the heroes of their favourite stories.

They prayed for Merlin, they prayed for Jesus and they prayed for a miracle. And while all of them had their magic bound at the moment, they were seven in total, a number most powerful in the realm of magic. And thus, a sliver of magic crawled out of this bond made of desperation, travelled through the walls and doors, reached out to the wide world, and touched the senses of another child.

-Scene Change-

Harry Potter found himself travelling in a dungeon, or at least what felt like a dungeon, with the flickering fires and damp walls and the total absence of sunlight, although there was an absence of human life in his path as well, not that he noticed it, curious as he was, to follow the feeling of magic on his senses. The atmosphere was creepy, and most if not all others his age and older, would have been out of their courage reserves by now, but if there was one thing that Harry Potter had in spades, it was courage. Whether it was a trait passed on from his parents (both reckless fighters of the Order of the Phoenix who had once had been involved in a running duel against the Dark Lord, and had barely escaped without permanent injury), from his grandparents on either side (both sides had put up quite a fight against the Death Eaters, only Lily, James, Dumbledore and a few others knew that Mark Jacob Evans and Rose Marigold Evans, both retired soldiers, had shot down 5 Death Eaters before taking an unforgivable each and going down, while the Charlus Potter vs Death Eaters duel in the ministry was famous, in not just UK but outside the country as well, of how the Potter Head of House had taken down two of the inner circle Death Eaters, and only went down after giving the Dark Lord a good fight.) or entirely his own, it was quite obvious to anyone who spent time around Harry, that while he was as intelligent as a Raven, as loyal as a Puff, and as cunning as a Snake, it was also equally obvious that his courage bordered on recklessness. Not that anyone did spend enough time around him.

So, one thing was clear, Harry Potter had gotten a feeling through his magic, and no bad smells, scary sights and eerie noises would deter him from his path. This stubbornness was not an especially good trait, but with no one around to tell him that, he was free to pursue what he wanted, and pursue it he did. As he moved forward, with nary a bit of hesitation in his gait, he noticed that the feeling, which had been getting stronger gradually, was starting to pound into his head. And in his mental ears (don't ask him what that means, for he doesn't understand it himself), he could even hear voices now, breathy whispers, asking for help. There were feelings in the air too, other than the soul-crushing darkness, there were feelings of helplessness, of desperation, and above all, there was the feeling of hope in the air, not that Harry could recognize it, but the thin thread of hope clung to the air with more desperation than an infant to his favourite toy.

At last, the surroundings changed, the dark walkway, giving way to prison cells, and as reckless as Harry was, even he paused for a moment, straining his ears, and listening this time with his body, whispers, in languages that he did not know.

He crept forward, peeking around the cell doors and finding nothing in the first four, before he looked into the fifth one, eyes widening at what he saw.

A/N: I know, I know, a cliffhanger, but I promise, this will be resolved within a month, and not take another year. Also, the chapter is already almost 14k words, if I extend it, I will have to put in another 5-10k words to end the chapter without another cliffhanger. Don't worry though, the next one won't end on a Cliff side. I have plans for this story, and if you guys stick around, you'll see those plans come to fruition.


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